COVIDโs brain-related symptoms go beyond mere mental fuzziness. They range across a spectrum that encompasses headaches, anxiety, depression, hallucinations and vivid dreams, not to mention well-known smell and taste anomalies. Strokes and seizures are also on the list. One study showed that more than 80 percent of COVID patients encountered neurological complications.
The mystery of how the virus enters and then inhabits the brainโs protected no-fly zone is under intensive investigation. At the 50th annual meeting of theย Society for Neuroscience, or SFN (held in virtual form this month after a pandemic hiatus in 2020), a set of yet-to-be-published research reports chronicle aspects of the COVID-causing SARS-COV-2 virusโs full trek in the brainโfrom cell penetration, to dispersion among brain regions, to disruption of neural functioning.
Trying to find the virusโs port of entry into nerve cells has perplexed investigators, because the surfaces of these cells appear to lack the molecular anchor pointsโthe ones found in lung cells, for instanceโthat are needed for a forced invasion into the cell interior.
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The pandemic raises the prospect of growing collaborations between virologists and neuroscientists. It is a reminder that the brain, notwithstanding the blood-brain barrier, is by no means impenetrable.
