Health

COVID-19 patient’s brain shows damage

The virus may have been removed by the time it died, or the copy number of the virus may have fallen below the detection level.

In a recent study conducted by the National Institutes of Health, researchers found tissue samples of patients who died shortly after being infected with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and were damaged by thinning and leakage of cerebrovascular disease. The features were observed regularly. However, the samples collected showed no signs of infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which may indicate that the damage was not caused by a direct viral attack.

Survey results published in New England Journal of MedicineThere is increasing evidence that infection from COVID-19 has some neurological consequences. There are widespread reports of viral patients experiencing symptoms such as delirium, malaise, headaches, and loss of smell and taste. The disease also causes patients to suffer from other neuropathologies such as stroke. Although some evidence of the virus has been found, researchers are still trying to understand how COVID-19 affects the brain.

The team behind the study analyzed brain tissue samples from 19 patients aged 5 to 73 years who died shortly after getting sick. The duration of death varied from hours to two months after obtaining COVID-19. Many patients had one or more risk factors, including obesity, diabetes, and other cardiovascular problems.

Researchers used a high-power magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner, which is 4-10 times more sensitive than the most common MRI scanners, to examine the olfactory bulb and brainstem of tissue samples. They observed that both areas showed multiple bright and dark spots showing inflammation and bleeding.

Next, when I examined the sample under a microscope, I found that in the bright spots, the blood vessels that leaked proteins into the brain and caused the immune response were thinned. They also confirmed that the dark spots had solidified and the blood vessels were leaking, but there was no immune response. However, using some methods for detecting genetic material or protein from SARS-CoV-2, they did not find evidence of the virus in tissue samples.

“We found that the brains of patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 may be vulnerable to microvessel damage. This result may be due to the body’s inflammatory response to the virus. “It suggests that there is,” said senior author Avindra Nath. According to research. “We hope that these results will help physicians understand the full range of problems that patients may suffer and come up with better treatments.”

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COVID-19 patient’s brain shows damage