Coronavirus symptoms: How COVID-19 attacks your brain
How does COVID-19 impact your brain?
As the novel coronavirus continues to wreak havoc across the globe, scientists and medical experts have accelerated their efforts to launch a vaccine for public circulation, in a bid to combat the disease. It has been well-established by now that the novel coronavirus attacks the lungs and other vital organs of the body including kidney, heart and liver. However, recent studies have noted that the highly infectious virus also impacts the brain as doctors are increasingly witnessing neurological symptoms in COVID-19 patients.
What did the first study find?
Recent studies have offered clear evidence that the SARS-CoV-2 virus causes various neurological manifestations and also attacks the brain cells. The first study has been published in the journal Neurology and the research was conducted on 64 COVID-19 patients in 11 hospitals. The median age of the patients was 66. The researchers found out that the most common neurological symptoms in the patients were confusion (53 per cent), followed by agitation (31 per cent), clinical signs of corticospinal tract involvement were observed in 31 per cent patients and 16 per cent suffered from a headache. Furthermore, MRI of 54 per cent of the patients was considered abnormal.
The findings of the second study
The second research which was published in the Annals of Clinical and Translational Neurology involved 509 patients. As per the report, 215 patients had developed neurological manifestations at the onset of the disease, 315 patients during hospitalization and 419 patients during the course of the disease. The researchers found that the most common neurological manifestations of the disease included myalgia (44.8 per cent), headaches (37.7 per cent), 31.8 per cent had encephalopathy, 29.7 per cent observed dizziness, 5.9 per cent had dysgeusia (distorted sense of taste), and 11.4 per cent of the patients suffered from anosmia (loss of smell).
The takeaway from both the studies
The findings of both the study noted that COVID-19 patients can develop neurological manifestations because of the disease. The highly infectious contagion is also linked with severe and fatal neurological manifestations of the disease, including stroke and encephalitis.