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J Neuroinflammation
. 2020 Sep 30;17(1):286.
doi: 10.1186/s12974-020-01957-4.
Neurological consequences of COVID-19: what have we learned and where do we go from here?
Abbas Jarrahi 1 , Meenakshi Ahluwalia 2 , Hesam Khodadadi 3 , Evila da Silva Lopes Salles 3 , Ravindra Kolhe 2 , David C Hess 4 , Fernando Vale 1 , Manish Kumar 5 , Babak Baban 3 , Kumar Vaibhav 1 , Krishnan M Dhandapani 6
Affiliations
- PMID: 32998763
- DOI: 10.1186/s12974-020-01957-4
Abstract
The coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) pandemic is an unprecedented worldwide health crisis. COVID-19 is caused by SARS-CoV-2, a highly infectious pathogen that is genetically similar to SARS-CoV. Similar to other recent coronavirus outbreaks, including SARS and MERS, SARS-CoV-2 infected patients typically present with fever, dry cough, fatigue, and lower respiratory system dysfunction, including high rates of pneumonia and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS); however, a rapidly accumulating set of clinical studies revealed atypical symptoms of COVID-19 that involve neurological signs, including headaches, anosmia, nausea, dysgeusia, damage to respiratory centers, and cerebral infarction. These unexpected findings may provide important clues regarding the pathological sequela of SARS-CoV-2 infection. Moreover, no efficacious therapies or vaccines are currently available, complicating the clinical management of COVID-19 patients and emphasizing the public health need for controlled, hypothesis-driven experimental studies to provide a framework for therapeutic development. In this mini-review, we summarize the current body of literature regarding the central nervous system (CNS) effects of SARS-CoV-2 and discuss several potential targets for therapeutic development to reduce neurological consequences in COVID-19 patients.
Keywords: ARDS; Coagulopathy; Coronavirus; Cytokine storm; Neuroinflammation; Neurotropism; Neutrophil extracellular traps; SARS-CoV-2; Stroke.