Author: Sam Bazzi
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SARS-CoV-2 infects neurons in vitro
July 13, 2020 by Sam Bazzi A study published recently in ALTEX demonstrates that the SARS-CoV-2 virus can invade neurons expressing the ACE2 receptor using a BrainSphere in vitro model. BrainSpheres are essentially tiny models of the brain that are produced from human inducible pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). These cells can differentiate into neurons, astrocytes,…
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Ischemic Strokes in Young People with COVID-19
June 23, 2020 by Sam Bazzi Another week, another study on horrifying brain injuries associated with COVID-19… Let’s get started. Although I’ve mentioned reports of stroke in previous reviews of neurological symptoms in COVID, I have not yet covered the published case reports describing ischemia. A case study came out in the New England Journal…
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Acute Necrotizing Myelitis in COVID-19
June 15, 2020 by Sam Bazzi Adding to the macabre menagerie of potential complications from COVID-19, a new report published in Neurology: Neuroimmunology & Neuroinflammation describes acute necrotizing myelitis (ANM) associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection. A 69-year-old female patient from Spain presented to clinic with complaints of cervical pain, imbalance, and motor weakness/numbness in her left…
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Geographic discrepancies in prevalence of olfactory and gustatory dysfunction in COVID-19
June 8, 2020 by Sam Bazzi Early studies on COVID-19 from China first revealed that SARS-CoV-2 infection can lead to anosmia (lack of smell) and ageusia (lack of taste). These early studies reported that these symptoms were uncommon, listing the prevalence at 5% of COVID-19 cases (Mao et al., 2020). However, more recent studies from…
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The Gut-Brain Axis May Mediate Gastrointestinal and Neurological Symptoms of COVID-19
June 2, 2020 by Sam Bazzi The gut microbiome and the gut-brain connection are currently hot topics in neuroimmunology, so I am constantly on the lookout for studies describing dysbiosis in COVID-19 patients. There are currently no large-scale studies on changes to the microbiome after SARS-CoV-2 infection, but there have been some interesting theories posed…
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Health Outcomes of Multiple Sclerosis Patients with COVID-19
May 25, 2020 by Sam Bazzi This week, I would like to focus on a topic that our lab has been interested in understanding for a long time, which is the health outcomes of multiple sclerosis (MS) patients with COVID-19. There have been primarily two published papers that discuss this topic and I will summarize…
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Encephalitis in COVID-19 Patients
May 18, 2020 by Sam Bazzi Encephalitis (inflammation of the brain) has now been associated with COVID-19 in several published case studies from around the world. This week’s blog post will focus on several of these encephalitis case studies. Case Presentation: A male patient from Wuhan (age not provided in the article) presented with typical…
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COVID-19 and Guillain-Barré Syndrome
May 11, 2020 by Sam Bazzi This week I would like to focus on Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS) and the published reports on the association between GBS and COVID-19. GBS is a rare neurological autoimmune disorder that affects the peripheral immune system, characterized by sensory deficits, and in some cases leading to acute paralysis and neuromuscular…
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Debate on the Significance of Neurological Symptoms of COVID-19
May 4, 2020 by Sam Bazzi During the past week, while I was surveying the literature for any new neurological reports in COVID-19, I found a paper that casted doubt on the connections between neurological disease and COVID-19, which led me down a rabbit hole of dissenting papers. A few weeks ago, I wrote a…