Characteristics of the Central Nervous System Accommodation by Sars-Covs-2 (Covid-19)

Abstract

The new coronavirus, called SARS-Cov-2, discovered in December 2019 in Wuhan, China, is already responsible for more than 3 million deaths worldwide, according to the WHO. The virus is responsible for attacking the respiratory, digestive and nervous systems, invading the cells of these systems that have the angiotensin-converting enzyme receptor 2 (ACE-2). The disease is being continuously studied and new scientific findings are being discovered every day. One of the most relevant guidelines is the involvement of the central nervous system by the coronavirus. Several cases have reported neurological symptoms such as headache, anosmia, ageusia, dizziness, seizures and in more severe cases acute cerebrovascular disease, encephalopathies and Guillain-Barré syndrome. In this context, some hypotheses were raised as to how this neuroinvasion would occur and two routes are pointed out as the main ones: neuronal and hematogenic. Given this scenario, we carried out this work with the aim of better understanding the role of SARS-CoV-2 in the central nervous system and its neurotropism, through a narrative review of the literature. A search for scientific articles was carried out using SciELO, Scholar Google and SpringerLink, using the keywords COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, central nervous system, neurological changes and neurophysiopathology. We seek only complete review articles published in the last year and a half, in Portuguese, English and Spanish. The exclusion criteria were incomplete articles, with more than one and a half years published. During the search, 48 articles were found, of which 24 fit the specific selection criteria.