A steadily increasing number of cases with neurological manifestations that are potentially related to COVID-19 are being reported in the literature. These most often include sudden anosmia, headache, encephalopathy, and stroke. The pathophysiological mechanisms underlying "Neuro-COVID" remain largely unknown, while the viral genome is very rarely detected in the cerebrospinal fluid. A study currently ongoing at the Cliniques universitaires Saint-Luc is aimed at investigating COVID-19 associated cerebrospinal fluid changes as well as immunohistochemical evidences of olfactory neuroepithelial cells direct viral infection and evidencing a direct infection of olfactory neuroepithelial cells.
Key Words
COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, encephalitis, cerebrospinal fluid, olfactory neuroepithelium