TY  - JOUR
A1  - Riederer, Peter
A1  - ter Meulen, Volker
T1  - Coronaviruses: a challenge of today and a call for extended human postmortem brain analyses
JF  - Journal of Neural Transmission
N2  - While there is abounding literature on virus-induced pathology in general and coronavirus in particular, recent evidence accumulates showing distinct and deleterious brain affection. As the respiratory tract connects to the brain without protection of the blood–brain barrier, SARS-CoV-2 might in the early invasive phase attack the cardiorespiratory centres located in the medulla/pons areas, giving rise to disturbances of respiration and cardiac problems. Furthermore, brainstem regions are at risk to lose their functional integrity. Therefore, long-term neurological as well as psychiatric symptomatology and eventual respective disorders cannot be excluded as evidenced from influenza-A triggered post-encephalitic Parkinsonism and HIV-1 triggered AIDS–dementia complex. From the available evidences for coronavirus-induced brain pathology, this review concludes a number of unmet needs for further research strategies like human postmortem brain analyses. SARS-CoV-2 mirroring experimental animal brain studies, characterization of time-dependent and region-dependent spreading behaviours of coronaviruses, enlightening of pathological mechanisms after coronavirus infection using long-term animal models and clinical observations of patients having had COVID-19 infection are calling to develop both protective strategies and drug discoveries to avoid early and late coronavirus-induced functional brain disturbances, symptoms and eventually disorders. To fight SARS-CoV-2, it is an urgent need to enforce clinical, molecular biological, neurochemical and genetic research including brain-related studies on a worldwide harmonized basis.
KW  - coronavirus
KW  - COVID-19
KW  - SARS-CoV-2 brain disorders
KW  - cardiorespiratory centre
KW  - brain pathology
KW  - neurological symptoms/disorders
KW  - brain stem
KW  - Parkinson’s disease
KW  - Parkinsonism
KW  - Alzheimer’s disease
KW  - multiple sclerosis
KW  - movement disorders
KW  - neuroinvasion
KW  - therapy
KW  - neuroprotection
KW  - depression
KW  - cognitive dysfunction
KW  - brain bank
KW  - postmortem studies
Y1  - 2020
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-314637
SN  - 0300-9564
SN  - 1435-1463
VL  - 127
IS  - 9
ER  -