Scientists find COVID-19 not directly responsible for brain damage among patients

Does coronavirus cause brain damage? Scientists have found evidence of damage in the brain tissues of patients who died from COVID-19, but without directly linking the damage to the virus. Currently, coronavirus pandemic continues to wreak havoc around the world, with scientists finding out more details about the virus and how it spreads as time goes by.

Reseachers from the National Institutes of Health found how the virus affects the brain, and found signs of damage induced by coronavirus in the form of thinning blood vessels that also become leaky. They ascertained this by observing tissue samples from patients who had passed away shortly after catching the virus.

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The scientists also found no signs of the virus in tissue samples, suggesting that the virus itself was not responsible for the attack. The results from the study were published recently in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Coronavirus is primarily a respiratory disease, but patients have reported neurological issues like headaches, dizziness, fatigue, delirium, and loss of sense of smell among many.

Doctors found that the virus was capable of inducing strokes among many patients.

Many studies since the onset of the virus have attempted to understand how the virus attacks the body. A few of them found traces of the virus in some patients' brains.

In this study, scientists took up examination of brain tissue samples from 19 patients who succumbed to the virus between March and July 2020. Out of the 19 samples, 16 were provided by New York City's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, while 3 came from the Department of Pathology at the University of Iowa College of Medicine.

Patients who died were aged between 5-73 years, and died between a few hours to two months after catching the virus. Eight patients were found dead in their homes, or in public spaces, while three patients suddenly collapsed and died.