Marcela Boyacá Mesa
Latin News Agency for Medicine and Public Health
The new coronavirus each day brings a different finding to the scientific community, brain damage is from the symptoms of COVID-19 that has generated several theories among researchers of the virus. The critical care physician and neurointensivist Robert Stevens, MD, associate director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Excellence in Precision Medicine for Neurocritical Care, has tracked cases in the hospital Johns Hopkins of COVID-19 patients who have had neurological problems. In an article published by the hospital, Dr. Stevens explained some of the prevailing scientific theories.
Symptoms
The doctor made it clear that at least half of the patients with COVID-19 that he has seen in his unit have presented neurological symptoms and what is the symptomatology that has been shown so far.
- Confusion
- Loss of consciousness
- Seizures
- Carrera
- Loss of smell and taste.
- Headaches
- Trouble focusing
- Changes in behavior
- Peripheral nerve problems, such as Guillain-Barré syndrome, which can lead to paralysis and respiratory failure
According to the research that has been advanced so far, there are four ways in which the new coronavirus can harm the brain.
Infection
The first of these is for the virus to enter the brain and cause a serious infection. Some of the reported cases found genetic material of the virus in the cerebrospinal fluid and viral particles in the brain cells. Anosmia or loss of smell could indicate that the virus entered through the olfactory bulb, located just above the nose and communicating information about smell to the brain.
Immune system overload
The job of the immune system is to protect, the second theory of scientists is that when trying to fight the virus, the immune system becomes overloaded, generating an inflammatory “maladaptive” response that causes damage to tissues and organs.
Multisystem disorder
The third theory is that all the physiological changes induced in the body by the new coronavirus such as fever, inflammation of organs and tissues, headache and multi-organ failure can explain brain dysfunction.
Blood clotting abnormality
Evidence shows that blood coagulation in patients diagnosed with COVID-19 is irregular and clots are highly likely to occur in these patients than in others, and this creates a tendency to suffer a stroke. Clots form in deep veins within the body or in the lungs, where they can cut off blood flow. A stroke could occur if a blood clot blocks or narrows the arteries that lead to the brain.
Increase of cerebral infarcts in young people
In an interview for the journal Medicine and Public Health (MSP) the Vascular Neurologist Julio Rodríguez, a specialist in cerebral infarctions, explained that
“What is being reported are cases of patients with COVID-19 who are having what they call a large vessel infarction, which in this case are due to clots that cover the largest arteries of the brain, that is striking for the medical community, because This is the origin of all this analysis and suspicion that a process of probability or increase in blood clotting is taking place and therefore, as a consequence, these clots are forming, in fact, in other medical specialties and the same is already being reported. phenomenon”.
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