It has been a year now since the novel coronavirus has hit us, but it still continues to be a mystery that keeps on unraveling. Even we have found efficient and safe vaccines against the virus and the disease and its causes is quite concerning.
The researchers are worried if it will interfere with the current treatment options and vaccines especially with the new strain of the virus.
How the novel coronavirus affects the human body has also been very inexplicable. Initially it was thought to be only a respiratory illness, it was found that the coronavirus can affect almost any organ of the body, and it has the ability to affect blood vessels too.
Neurological symptoms and effects on the brain were also reported in COVID-19 patients worldwide.
The novel coronavirus may not attack the brain directly
A recent study conducted by the National Institutes of Health in which the researchers saw signs of damage caused by tapering and leaky brain blood vessels in tissue samples of patients who died quickly after contracting COVID-19 disease.
However, the researchers did not see any signs of an infection from the virus, in the collected samples, which suggested that the damage was not caused directly by a direct attack of the virus.
The findings of the study were published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Neurological symptoms such as confusion, headaches, fatigue, have been reported in COVID patients.
Brain Damage Due To Covid 19
Covid patients have reported the risk of strokes and the researchers are still trying to understand how it affects the brain.
The team of researchers looked at brain tissue samples of 19 patients who had died shortly after contracting the disease, with ages varying from 5 to 73 years old. The time of death varied from a few hours after getting COVID-19 to 2 months.
Many of the patients had more than one risk factor like obesity, diabetes and other cardiovascular issues.
Using a high-powered magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner 4 to 10 times as sensitive as most common MRI scanners, the investigators examined the olfactory bulbs and brainstems of the tissue samples. They noticed that both of the regions showed multiple bright and dark spots, which indicate inflammation and bleeding.
On examining the samples under a microscope, they found that the bright spots showed contraction of blood vessels that were leaking proteins into the brain, triggering an immune reaction. They also saw that the dark spots had clotted, as well as leaky, blood vessels but no immune response.
However, using several methods for detecting genetic material or proteins from SARS-CoV-2, they found no evidence of the virus in the tissue samples.
“We found that the brains of patients who contract the infection from SARS-CoV-2 may be susceptible to microvascular blood vessel damage. Our results suggest that this may be caused by the body’s inflammatory response to the virus,” Avindra Nath, senior author on the study said. “We hope these results will help doctors understand the full spectrum of problems patients may suffer so that we can come up with better treatments.”
Reports of the virus entering the brain via the nose had also come to light previously.
However, it is still a unknown that researchers are trying to unravel – that if the virus directly infects the brain, or do other symptoms lead to the various effects on the vital organ.
