COVID-19 can cause severe inflammation in the brain

Both during and after infection with the Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, patients may suffer from severe neurological symptoms, including anosmia, the loss of taste and smell typically associated with COVID-19. Along with direct damage caused by the virus, researchers suspect a role for excessive inflammatory responses in the disease. A team of researchers from the Freiburg University Medical Center and the Cluster of Excellence CIBSS has now shown that a severe inflammatory response can develop in the central nervous system of COVID-19 patients involving different immune cells around the vascular system and in the brain tissue. The team led by Professor Dr. Marco Prinz, Medical Director at the Institute of Neuropathology, and Professor Dr. Dr. Bertram Bengsch, Section Head of Translational Systems Immunology in Hepatogastroenterology at the Internal Medicine II just published their results in the current issue of Immunity.