Background: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has spread to over 150 countries worldwide. Since the first case of COVID-19 was confirmed in Saudi Arabia, cases have continued to escalate exponentially. The COVID-19 outbreak has had a negative effect on mental health and well-being. The study aimed to investigate the effects of the strict national regulations associated with the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health.Methods: This was a cross-sectional study of a convenience sample of Saudi residents. Saudi residents aged 18 years or older were invited to complete an online questionnaire after one month of a nationwide 24-h curfew between May 6, 2020 and May 13, 2020. We measured psychological distress using the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale-21 (DASS-21). We ran binary logistic regression analyses to detect variables that significantly predicted DASS-21 scores.Results: A sample of 2252 participants was recruited from the general population of Saudi Arabia. The DASS-21 score means and standard deviations for depression and anxiety for the whole sample (10.73 ± 10.29 and 6.98 ± 8.30, respectively) were in the range of mild depression and anxiety. In contrast, the mean DASS-21 stress score was within the normal range (11.97 ± 10.80). The mean stress score for healthcare workers was within the normal range (13.70 ± 10.68) but was significantly higher than the mean score for the public (11.56 ± 10.89; P = 0.0006). Several variables (e.g., age, gender, and history of contact with confirmed COVID-19 cases) were significantly associated with higher DASS-21 scores.Conclusions: The COVID-19 pandemic has created a psychological burden. Therefore, there is an urgent need to implement emergency public health interventions that ameliorate the risk perception of COVID-19 through the dissemination of adequate and targeted health information that could be a successful measure to mitigate the psychological impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Multiple sclerosis is a progressive autoimmune disorder of the myelin sheath and is the most common inflammatory disease of young adults. Up to 65% of multiple sclerosis patients have cognitive impairments such as memory loss and difficulty in understanding and maintaining attention and concentration. Many pharmacological interventions have been used to reverse motor impairments in multiple sclerosis patients; however, none of these drugs improve cognitive function. Melatonin can diffuse through the blood-brain barrier and has well-known antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties with almost no side effects; it is, therefore, a promising neuroprotective supplement for many neurological diseases, such as multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, ischemic stroke, and fibromyalgia. However, only some researches have assessed the effect of melatonin on cognitive dysfunction in multiple sclerosis. Here, we evaluated the effects of melatonin supplementation on memory defects induced by cuprizone in a mouse model of multiple sclerosis. Cuprizone (400 mg/kg) and melatonin (80 mg/kg) were administered to SWR/J mice daily for 5 weeks. Open field, tail-flick, and novel object recognition behavioral tests were performed. Also, expression of cAMP-response element-binding protein, synaptophysin, and postsynaptic density protein 95 were measured in the prefrontal cortex. Melatonin significantly improved the memory defects induced by cuprizone toxicity by up-regulating cAMP-response element-binding protein and by increasing expression of the synapse-associated synaptophysin and postsynaptic density protein 95 genes in the prefrontal cortex. These results indicate that melatonin may provide protective effects against memory impairments associated with multiple sclerosis.

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: Coronavirus is an enveloped, non-segmented, positive-polarity and single-stranded RNA virus. It has four types genera that infect mammals and birds, with only alpha and beta types found to affect humans with varying severity. A specific clade of beta coronaviruses are reported as lethal zoonotic viruses and have created major epidemic troubles, starting with the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2002, then the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) in 2012, and lastly Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in 2019. However, many neurological complications reported in COVID19 patients have highlighted a critical pattern of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Awareness of such an association could create new insight to consider neurological manifestations as a COVID-19 differential diagnosis during the pandemic period of COVID-19, to avoid delayed diagnosis and prevent further transmission.

Background: Migraine is a complex disorder triggered by an interaction of multiple abnormalities involving genes, blood vessels, and brain structures. It is characterized by throbbing headaches, mostly on one side of the head. It is one of the most common causes of disability, as announced by the Global Burden of the Diseases (GBD). Objectives: We aimed at assessing disabilities in Saudi migraine patients and addressing the relation between migraine-associated disabilities and social factors in Saudi Arabia. Methods: We conducted a web-based survey randomly through social media channels to the general population around Saudi Arabia. Basic personal information, along with a confirmation of the migraine diagnosis, were included in the first part of the questionnaire, and the respondent’s eligibility was determined to complete the survey. Specified questions about the sociodemographic characteristics, migraine attacks and medications, and the items of Migraine Disability Assessment score (MIDAS), were included in the next parts of the survey. Results: Of the 480 total responses, 250 (52.1%) eligible participants were included (mean age of 34.84 ± 10.14 years; 83.2% females). Most of the participants were married (59.6%), had three or more kids (50.7%), had a bachelor’s degree (60.8%), and 52.8% were employed. Only 16.4% of the subjects did regular exercise, and 16.8% were current smokers. No significant association was detected between the MIDAS score and most of the social characteristics, including marital status, number of kids, education level, occupation, and smocking. Conclusions: Most of the migraineurs in Saudi Arabia had a severe disability according to the MIDAS score. Gender, regular exercise, the severity of the disease, and frequency of attack had a statistically significant relationship with migraine-related disabilities. Migraine treatment and prophylaxis were incompetent in decreasing migraine severity and related disabilities in our selected participants.