Coronavirus can affect the nerves and brain: doctors explain symptoms

Kassel – an infection with Crown It can also affect the nervous system. We speak to Professor Dr. Julian Bösel, director of the clinic’s neurology clinic. Kassel.

Prof. Bösel, until now Covid-19 is mainly known as a respiratory disease. To what extent is the coronavirus also a case for neurology?

Several reports from China, Japan, Italy, France and recently also from the USA. USA They have shown that this Corona virus the nervous system can also be affected, both the peripheral and the brain, as can be seen in neurological symptoms.

What are the symptoms?

Disorders of smell and taste are relatively common, probably reflecting the involvement of certain mucosal cells, but it may also be an indication that the nerves and brain are affected. Headaches and muscle aches, dizziness, nausea and vomiting, hallucinations, altered consciousness, epileptic seizures, stiff neck and even neurological deficits can be symptoms.

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Do these symptoms appear before patients test positive or do they add to common symptoms like cough and fever?

Both have been described. Actually, these may be early symptoms, and therefore may be an indication of one. Crown-You have tested the infection. Other typical symptoms may also be missing. If the course is mild, the neurological side effects seem to disappear after a few days.

How does the entry of the coronavirus into the brain work?

The most common route is probably through the blood and is known as hematogenous spread: the virus can bind to cells in the vascular wall through so-called ACE2 as a receptor and reach brain cells that also carry ACE2. The other route apparently leads through the nerves connected to the brain and spinal cord.

In the olfactory mucosa, for example, nerve cells could be affected and the virus could enter the brain through the olfactory bulb. The virus can also reach the brain stem through other cranial nerves, for example, from the throat or respiratory organs.

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Are these findings new?

Scientists have also discovered this behavior in other coronaviruses, for example, in the waves of MERS and SARS disease. A Japanese patient recently provided evidence that Sars-CoV-2, which is part of Covid-19, can affect the nervous system.

In his brain and meningitis with epileptic seizures, the virus was first detected in nervous water. Another patient in the United States died after neurological symptoms and underwent an autopsy. The virus was found in nerve cells and in the vascular wall of your brain, as an indication of spread through the blood.

What effects can affect the nervous system?

Direct effects include encephalitis (meningitis), meningitis (meningitis) or their combination, meningoencephalitis. But there are also indirect effects like strokes: the coronavirus leads to changes in the blood and its coagulation. Covid-19 patients have a greater tendency to thrombi. This explains why some of the Covid-19 patients suffer from pulmonary embolism. Currently there are reports from the US. USA, Including youth Crown patients They suffer strokes that would not otherwise be at greater risk.

Crown in Kassel: study in a hospital of patients with a crown with severe courses

What experience have you had at the clinic so far?

Neurologists are only just beginning to recognize the problem. Our clinic is coordinating a study with Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich that will enroll patients across Germany with intensive care courses and involvement of the nervous system to identify patterns and therapeutic opportunities.

Specifically, we have expanded our assessment to include the neurological symptoms mentioned in our regular emergency room and also in the separate emergency room (Covid Care Unit, CCU) specially configured for patients with Covid 19.

By the way, symptoms of neurological deficiency are always warning signs with which patients should always go to the hospital. Despite all the attention Covid-19 is currently receiving, this should not lead patients with symptoms of this type to avoid presenting to the clinic for fear of becoming infected with the virus; this particularly applies to patients with suspected stroke.

By Anja Berens

The crown pandemic continues to spread in Kassel. Three main doctors talk about the first experiences and the preparations that are taking place in the clinic.

In the Corona crisis, several closed clinics in the Kassel region will be reactivated.