Stanford researchers find signs of inflammation in brains of people who died of COVID-19
I am not certain if this has been previously posted, but it is less than a week old.
https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2021/0...Bm6RvPiRTY
The most comprehensive molecular study to date of the brains of people who died of COVID-19 turned up unmistakable signs of inflammation and impaired brain circuits.
Investigators at the Stanford School of Medicine and Saarland University in Germany report that what they saw looks a lot like what’s observed in the brains of people who died of neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.
The findings may help explain why many COVID-19 patients report neurological problems. These complaints increase with more severe cases of COVID-19. And they can persist as an aspect of “long COVID,” a long-lasting disorder that sometimes arises following infection with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. About one-third of individuals hospitalized for COVID-19 report symptoms of fuzzy thinking, forgetfulness, difficulty concentrating and depression, said Tony Wyss-Coray, PhD, professor of neurology and neurological sciences at Stanford.
Yet the researchers couldn’t find any signs of SARS-CoV-2 in brain tissue they obtained from eight individuals who died of the disease. Brain samples from 14 people who died of other causes were used as controls for the study.
“The brains of patients who died from severe COVID-19 showed profound molecular markers of inflammation, even though those patients didn’t have any reported clinical signs of neurological impairment,” said Wyss-Coray, who is the D. H. Chen Professor II.
Scientists disagree about whether SARS-CoV-2 is present in COVID-19 patients’ brains. “We used the same tools they’ve used — as well as other, more definitive ones — and really looked hard for the virus’s presence,” he said. “And we couldn’t find it.”
The blood-brain barrier, which consists in part of blood-vessel cells that are tightly stitched together and blob-like abutments created by brain cells’ projections squishing up against the vessels, has until recently been thought to be exquisitely selective in granting access to cells and molecules produced outside the brain.
But previous work by Wyss-Coray’s group and by others has shown that bloodborne factors outside the brain can signal through the blood-brain barrier to ignite inflammatory responses inside the brain. This could explain why, as Wyss-Coray and his colleagues have discovered, factors in young mice’s blood can rejuvenate older mice’s cognitive performance, whereas blood from old mice can detrimentally affect their younger peers’ mental ability.
Here is link to more detailed article in Nature.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03710-0
I am not certain if this has been previously posted, but it is less than a week old.
https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2021/0...Bm6RvPiRTY
The most comprehensive molecular study to date of the brains of people who died of COVID-19 turned up unmistakable signs of inflammation and impaired brain circuits.
Investigators at the Stanford School of Medicine and Saarland University in Germany report that what they saw looks a lot like what’s observed in the brains of people who died of neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.
The findings may help explain why many COVID-19 patients report neurological problems. These complaints increase with more severe cases of COVID-19. And they can persist as an aspect of “long COVID,” a long-lasting disorder that sometimes arises following infection with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. About one-third of individuals hospitalized for COVID-19 report symptoms of fuzzy thinking, forgetfulness, difficulty concentrating and depression, said Tony Wyss-Coray, PhD, professor of neurology and neurological sciences at Stanford.
Yet the researchers couldn’t find any signs of SARS-CoV-2 in brain tissue they obtained from eight individuals who died of the disease. Brain samples from 14 people who died of other causes were used as controls for the study.
“The brains of patients who died from severe COVID-19 showed profound molecular markers of inflammation, even though those patients didn’t have any reported clinical signs of neurological impairment,” said Wyss-Coray, who is the D. H. Chen Professor II.
Scientists disagree about whether SARS-CoV-2 is present in COVID-19 patients’ brains. “We used the same tools they’ve used — as well as other, more definitive ones — and really looked hard for the virus’s presence,” he said. “And we couldn’t find it.”
The blood-brain barrier, which consists in part of blood-vessel cells that are tightly stitched together and blob-like abutments created by brain cells’ projections squishing up against the vessels, has until recently been thought to be exquisitely selective in granting access to cells and molecules produced outside the brain.
But previous work by Wyss-Coray’s group and by others has shown that bloodborne factors outside the brain can signal through the blood-brain barrier to ignite inflammatory responses inside the brain. This could explain why, as Wyss-Coray and his colleagues have discovered, factors in young mice’s blood can rejuvenate older mice’s cognitive performance, whereas blood from old mice can detrimentally affect their younger peers’ mental ability.
Here is link to more detailed article in Nature.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03710-0
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