SARS‐CoV-2 Neuroinvasion Potential; Narrative Review

Document Type : Review

Author

Assistant Professor, Mediclal Physiology, Department of Basic Sciences, Farhangian University, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

The outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS ‐ CoV-2) in December 2019 has led to the epidemic of Covid-19. Recent clinical studies have shown that parts of the nervous system; Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) are involved in SARS-CoV-2 infection, which is associated with a variety of neurological manifestations such as headache, dizziness, and olfactory and gustatory disorders. This study provides an overview of the Pubmed, Google Scholar and Scopus databases; and the keywords SARS ‐ CoV-2, Covid-19, ACE2 and the nervous system were used to find articles related to the clinical data of SARS ‐ CoV-2 invasion of the nervous system. The published articles retrieved from 1992 to 2020. The findings suggest that coronaviruses invade the human nervous system and cause severe neurological changes. Therefore, given that the SARS-CoV-2 specific receptor; ACE2 is abundant in the central nervous system, and the neurological and invasive properties of other human coronaviruses have been widely reported, it is essential to identify possible complications of COVID-19 on the nervous system.

Keywords