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Tuesday 06 October 2020
Neurological symptoms are repeatedly observed in Covid 19 patients. Researchers from Hamburg and Freiburg are now investigating the deceased and discovering: it is not the coronavirus that attacks the brain, but the body’s immune response.
According to a study, the coronavirus can not only cause complications in the lungs, heart and kidneys in patients with Covid-19, but also inflammation in the brain. Researchers from Hamburg and Freiburg were able to prove this in examinations of 43 deceased who were infected with Sars-CoV-2. They published their study in the journal “The Lancet Neurology.”
Scientists detected the coronavirus or its proteins in the brain stem or nerves that caused 21 deaths there. However, the virus levels were very low, he said. Patients with the highest viral load would not have shown more brain changes than those who died without a virus. However, the researchers demonstrated an immune reaction in the dead whose brains were infected.
From this, they conclude that inflammatory cells could be responsible for neurological symptoms ranging from olfactory disorders to headaches and strokes. Neurological symptoms had been repeatedly reported in Covid 19 patients. These have a broad spectrum, ranging from diffuse complaints of mild severity to severe strokes.
Follow the viral infection
So far it has not been clear if and how the pathogen enters the brain, and if it can also multiply there, explained study leader Markus Glatzel of the Institute of Neuropathology at University Medical Center Eppendorf (UKE) in a message: which is not the new type. The coronavirus itself damages the brain, but neurological symptoms are believed to be an indirect consequence of the virus infection. ” Researchers from the Institute of Forensic Medicine, the Institute for Medical Microbiology, Virology and Hygiene, the UKE Neurology Clinic and Polyclinic and the Institute of Neuropathology at the University of Freiburg Medical Center were also involved in the study.
Typically, Covid 19 patients show a significantly modified immune response, especially in the blood. The clear inflammatory reaction now demonstrated in the brain was not known up to this point, added co-author Professor Marco Prinz. According to Professor Martin Aepfelbacher, the clear detection of viruses in individual cells and nerves is particularly interesting. This indicates “a localized increase and deterioration of specific brain functions.”
The deceased examined, 16 women and 27 men, had a mean age of 76 years. With their age-typical previous illnesses, they represented Covid 19 patients in Germany, the researchers emphasize.
