Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2020 Oct 18;12(10):e11014.
doi: 10.7759/cureus.11014.

Neuroinvasion and Viral Reservoir in COVID-19

Marcos Altable Pérez  1 , Juan Moises De la Serna  2
Affiliations
Review

Neuroinvasion and Viral Reservoir in COVID-19

Marcos Altable Pérez et al. Cureus. .

Abstract

The new coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has a remarkably high transmissibility potential and sometimes invades the central nervous system (CNS). The study of the involvement of the nervous system in the pathogenesis of the disease is especially interesting. Currently, there are only three main theories about it: direct neuroinvasion; blood-brain barrier (BBB) crossing and nicotinic hypothesis. Because of the rapid expansion of a virus that until now was unknown, it is necessary to know the mechanisms by which severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)-like coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) generates the disease. The study of the involvement of the nervous system in the pathogenesis of the disease is especially interesting, since it is the least studied question with more innovative theories that could explain not only neurological complications, but also the primary infection and the involvement of the various organs and systems.

Keywords: ace2; central nervous system; covid-19; neuroinflammation; neuroinvasion; nicotine; trigeminal.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

References

    1. Clinical characteristics of coronavirus disease 2019 in China. Guan WJ, Ni ZY, Hu Y, et al. N Engl J Med. 2020;382:1708–1720. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Organ distribution of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) associated coronavirus (SARS-CoV) in SARS patients: implications for pathogenesis and virus transmission pathways. Ding Y, He L, Zhang Q, et al. J Pathol. 2004;203:622–630. - PMC - PubMed
    1. WHO: pneumonia of unknown cause - China. [Oct;2020 ];WMH Commission. https://www.who.int/csr/don/05-january-2020-pneumonia-of-unkown-cause-ch... 2020
    1. Coronavirus disease 2019: What we know? He F, Deng Y, Li W. J Med Virol. 2020;92:719–725. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Pathogenicity and transmissibility of 2019-nCoV—a quick overview and comparison with other emerging viruses. Chen J. Microbes Infect. 2020;22:69–71. - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources