This article brings up a specific inflammation-related protein (HMGB1) as being correlated with cognitive impairment after an ICU stay. Usually an ICU stay is

This article brings up a specific inflammation-related protein (HMGB1) as being correlated with cognitive impairment after an ICU stay. Usually an ICU stay is the result of being profoundly and dangerously ill -- going to the ICU likely means that you need significant pharmacological and/or mechanical assistance in the basic things like... circulating blood. Or oxygenation. And once there, you may have tubes/catheters/wires in various orifices and puncturing vessels and organs. You're often medically sedated, and if you become too awake or agitated, you are sedated further. Unsurprisingly, many patients become agitated or delirious -- they don't know where they are or when it is or maybe even who they are. Which makes things worse. I mean, imagine it -- maybe you wake up in the midst of this horrendous state of affairs, and you become understandably upset and confused, but if you move around or holler (if you can) you may well get further sedated. Repeatedly. The cognitive impact of this alone can understandably be immense. I don't mean to say that ICUs are some evil thing, though surely they could be improved. But the causes of "post-intensive care syndrome" are undoubtedly enormously multi-factorial, what with the level of derangement and insult to your body (and especially your mind!) from whatever illness led to you the ICU to begin with, and the experience of being there. And as such I am skeptical that this single protein could be terrifically useful either as a marker of or a therapeutic target for cognitive impairment in this setting. (I think as protein mass spec and other technologies improve, we might gain a better understanding of how sets of dozens or hundreds of proteins in the body may be related to disease states, and perhaps therapies will target combinations of proteins or more complex interactions rather than "blocks this one protein".)