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The virus may have been cleared by the time of death or the virus copy number was below detection level.
In a recent study by the National Institutes of Health, investigators routinely observed signs of damage from thinning and leaking brain blood vessels in tissue samples from patients who died soon after contracting coronavirus disease. 2019 (COVID-19). However, they saw no signs of infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the samples taken, which could suggest that the damage was not caused by a direct viral attack.
The results, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, adds to the growing body of evidence that a COVID-19 infection has some sort of neurological impact. There have been many reports of symptoms such as delirium, fatigue, headaches, and loss of smell and taste. The disease has also caused patients to suffer from other neuropathologies such as strokes. Although some evidence for the virus has been found, investigators are still trying to understand how COVID-19 affects the brain.
The team behind the study analyzed brain tissue samples from 19 patients who died shortly after contracting the disease, aged 5 to 73. The time of death ranged from a few hours after receiving COVID-19 to 2 months. Many patients had one or more risk factors such as obesity, diabetes and other cardiovascular problems.
Using a high-power magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner 4 to 10 times more sensitive than most common MRI scanners, the researchers examined the olfactory bulbs and brain stems of tissue samples. They observed that both areas had multiple bright and dark spots, indicating inflammation and bleeding.
They then looked at the samples under a microscope and found that the bright dots showed thinning blood vessels leaking proteins in the brain, triggering an immune response. They also saw that the dark spots had clotted, as well as leaking blood vessels, but no immune response. However, using several methods to detect genetic material or proteins of SARS-CoV-2, they found no evidence of the virus in the tissue samples.
“We have found that the brains of patients who acquire SARS-CoV-2 infection may be susceptible to microvascular damage to blood vessels. Our results suggest that this may be caused by the body’s inflammatory response to the virus,” Avindra Nath , lead author on the study said. “We hope these results will help physicians understand the full range of problems that patients may suffer so that we can provide better treatments.
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