en Cognitive Neuroscience Cognitive Neuroscience Original Original <div style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Introduction</strong>: Coronavirus-2019 (COVID-19) spreads rapidly worldwide and causes severe acute respiratory syndrome. The current study aims to evaluate the relationship between the whole-brain functional connections in a resting state and cognitive impairments in patients with COVID-19 compared to the healthy control group.<br> <strong>Methods</strong>: Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) and Montreal cognitive assessment (MoCA) data were obtained from 29 patients of the acute stage of COVID-19 on the third day of admission and 20 healthy controls. Cross-correlation of the mean resting-state signals was determined in the voxels of 23 independent components (IC) of brain neural circuits. To assess cognitive function and neuropsychological status, MoCA was performed on all participants. The relationship between rs-fMRI information, neuropsychological status, and paraclinical data was analyzed.<br> <strong>Results</strong>: The COVID-19 group got a lower mean MoCA score and showed a significant reduction in the functional connectivity of the IC14 (P<0.001) and IC38 (P<0.001) regions compared to the controls. The increase in functional connectivity was observed in the COVID-19 group compared to the controls at baseline in the default mode network (DMN) IC00 (P<0.001) and dorsal attention network (DAN) IC08 (P<0.001) regions. Furthermore, the alternation of functional connectivity in the mentioned ICs was significantly correlated with the mean MoCA scores and inflammatory parameters, i.e. erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), and C-reactive protein (CRP).<br> <strong>Conclusion</strong>: Functional connectivity abnormalities in four brain neural circuits are associated with cognitive impairment and increased inflammatory markers in patients with COVID-19.</div> Whole-brain functional connectivity, Cognitive impairment, COVID-19, Neuropsychology, Resting-state functional magnetic resonance 753 772 http://bcn.iums.ac.ir/browse.php?a_code=A-10-1425-4&slc_lang=en&sid=1 Mohammad Niroumand Sarvandani m.niroumand@live.com 13700319475328460047469 13700319475328460047469 No Department of Addiction Studies, School of Medicine, Student Research Committee, Shahroud University of Medical Sciences, Shahroud, Iran. Javad Sheikhi Koohsar Javadsheikhi3@gmail.com 13700319475328460047470 13700319475328460047470 No Health Related Social and Behavioral Sciences Research Center, Shahroud University of Medical Sciences, Shahroud, Iran. Raheleh Rafaiee rahelerafaie@gmail.com 13700319475328460047471 13700319475328460047471 No Department of Neuroscience, School of Advanced Technologies in Medicine, Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, Sari, Iran. Maryam Saeedi saeedimaryam38@gmail.com 13700319475328460047472 13700319475328460047472 No Department of Neurology, School of Medicine, Shahroud University of Medical Sciences, Shahroud, Iran. Seyedeh Masoumeh Seyedhosseini Tamijani seyedhosseini_sm@yahoo.com 13700319475328460047473 13700319475328460047473 No Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Research Center, Addiction Institute, Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, Sari, Iran. Hamed Ghazvini hghazvini1@gmail.com 13700319475328460047474 13700319475328460047474 No Department of Neuroscience, School of Advanced Technologies in Medicine, Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, Sari, Iran. Hossein Sheibani sheybani@shmu.ac.ir 13700319475328460047475 13700319475328460047475 Yes Unit of Clinical Research Development, Imam Hossein Hospital, Shahroud University of Medical Sciences, Shahroud, Iran.