Neurological consequences of Covid-19: development of a web application for executing an online test battery

The Covid-19 pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2, emerged in Wuhan, China, between December 2019 and January 2020. At the time of writing this paper, it still represents a significant issue for global health and economics, as well as for livelihood and for physical and mental well-being of people worldwide. A range of persistent symptoms can linger long after the acute infection as a part of a condition called Post-Covid-19 Syndrome or Long Covid. Long Covid can affect many organs and systems including the brain, causing headache, memory and concentration issues, sleep disorders, anxiety and depression. Prevalence, type, and severity of such long-lasting effects and how they may link to other factors such as the severity of initial disease and comorbidities, is still unclear. ‘Neurological integrity and cognitive functioning test battery’, a project from the University of Essex, aims to investigate the behavioural and brain markers indicative of neural integrity (sensory integration) and cognitive functioning (attention and memory) as biomarkers of neurological damage from Covid-19. This is achieved through the design of a web application that allows participants to perform an online battery of tests, consisting of a series of cognitive tasks including visual and auditory stimuli. Behavioural markers are then collected from participants’ answers, preserved and made available to researchers, through the system itself. The use of a web application enables the centralisation of the processes of information gathering and retrieval, and greatly simplifies the recruitment of participants that can take part in the experiment from their homes, with the only need of a computer with Internet access. The results of this study will help to understand which brain indicators are affected by Covid-19 and how they are altered, in order to support researchers, clinicians and rehabilitation therapists to better assess risk, chart recovery, and restore optimal mental and physical functioning after Covid-19. The purpose of this paper is to document the activities carried out as part of above-described research study, providing details on the system design, architecture and implementation.