A new study posted online on Wednesday showed that COVID-19 might also attack the brain. Several researchers also supported the study on COVID-19 brain infection. 

Brain
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It has been established that COVID-19 targets the lungs, kidneys, liver, and blood vessels. However, there are only limited studies on how the coronavirus attacks the brain even though half of those who tested positive for the virus reported neurological symptoms like headaches, confusion, and delirium.

A new study offered a clear evidence that COVID-19 invades brain cells in some people. It was found that the virus is able to replicate inside the brain, and the virus seems to suck up all of the oxygen nearby, starving the neighboring cells to death.

But the prevalence of this or how the virus gets to the brain is not yet clear. COVID-19 brain infection is likely to be rare, but some people are susceptible to this condition because of their genetic backgrounds, high viral load, or other reasons. 

Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist at Yale University and the lead author of the study, said that it could have lethal consequences if the brain is infected. 

Several scientists, including Dr. Michael Zandi, consultant neurologist at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in Britain, said that even though they knew that the virus could infect the brain, they had not seen much evidence about the brain infection. 

In July, Zandi and his team published a study titled, "The emerging spectrum of COVID-19 neurology: clinical, radiological and laboratory findings," which showed that some of the patients develop a serious neurological problem that includes nerve damage.

In the new study, Iwasaki and his team said they did not find any evidence of an immune response that gives remedy to the infection.

Iwasaki has described the infection as a silent one, adding that the virus has a lot of evasion mechanisms.

Alysson Muotri, a neuroscientist at the University of California, San Diego, who has also studied the Zika virus, supported Iwasaki's study. She confirmed that the study's findings are consistent with other observations in organoids infected with the virus. 

 She noted that the coronavirus seems to rapidly decrease the number of synapses, the connections between neurons. 

"Days after infection, and we already see a dramatic reduction in the amount of synapses. We don't know yet if that is reversible or not," Muotri said.

Even though there are some gaps in the study, Iwasaki and her team said that COVID-19 brain infection is more lethal than respiratory infection. 

But some experts suggested that researchers would still need to analyze many autopsy samples to estimate how common brain infection is and whether it is present in people with milder disease or in so-called long-haulers, many of whom have neurological symptoms.

Dr. Robert Stevens, a neurologist at Johns Hopkins University, noted that around 40 to 60 percent of those who tested positive for the coronavirus experienced neurological and psychiatric symptoms. However, he said that not all symptoms should be linked to coronavirus brain infection.   

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