Covid-19 can cause brain alterations and neurocognitive dysfunction – National Geographic

Enjoy 3 FREE National Geographic magazines and be part of the movement for a more sustainable world. MORE INFO Enjoy our special editions at a single price for being a subscriber. DISCOVER THEM Neural symptoms have become one of the most frequent extrapulmonary complications in COVID-19 infections, affecting more than 30% of patients who suffer from it. This is one of the pieces of evidence highlighted by a new study published in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences under the name Morphological, cellular, and molecular basis of brain infection in COVID-19 patients. The research explains how the that the virus infects astrocytes, brain cells that carry out a large number of key functions for carrying out nervous activity, causing structural changes in the brain. In some cases, SARS-CoV-2 infection can cause brain alterations and neurocognitive dysfunction, especially in cases of prolonged COVID-19, according to the cases analyzed in the study. In some cases, SARS-CoV- 2 can cause brain alterations and neurocognitive dysfunction. Daniel Martins-de-Souza, doctor in Biochemistry at the State University of Campinas (Brazil), and the rest of the team signing the study analyzed the brain structure of 81 patients in process of recovery from the disease to a moderate degree and another 81 healthy patients, verifying how patients in the first group showed reduced cortical thickness, a finding related to symptoms of anxiety and depression. More information This is how the coronavirus infects human cells Structural changes in the brainIn addition to studying the results of the first two groups, the team also analyzed brain samples from 26 people who died from the disease with very revealing results: the analyzes indicated that the samples from 5 of the 26 cases studied had suffered severe damage to brain tissue. A later deeper analysis ended up showing that the morphology of astrocytes, the key cells for maintaining neuronal metabolism, made them highly predisposed to be infected by SARS-CoV-2. SARS-CoV-2 infects astrocytes at through the NRP1 receptor of these brain cells, key in the production of neurotransmitters. In the case of astrocytes, the research shows how the NRP1 receptor is the gateway for the virus. Once infected, the analyzed astrocytes showed altered levels of the metabolic used for the functioning of neurons and for the production of neurotransmitters, in addition to secreting neurotoxic molecules. As the authors emphasize, these findings explain the damage and structural changes in the brains of COVID-19 patients upon infection. More information The coronavirus seen through the microscope The effects of persistent COVID-19 on neural networksAlthough the evidence from the study confirms neuropsychiatric manifestations associated mainly with severe infections caused by the disease, neuronal dysfunction has also been observed in patients with The sample shows that they have suffered from the infection to a moderate degree. The long-term alterations in the brain that have been described so far in the research range from atrophy in the orbitofrontal cortex to neurocognitive disability, through excessive fatigue and anxiety symptoms in patients who have suffered from the disease to a moderate degree. In the patients who died from the disease, the study indicates that evidence of acute and severe damage was found in the brain tissue extracted from the orbitofrontal region samples. More information Confirmed, the COVID-19 pandemic emerged in the Huanan market in Wuhan