Newsweek - USA (2021-02-19)

24 NEWSWEEK.COM FEBRUARY 19, 2021

MEDICINE

Parkinson-like muscle rigidity, psychosis and, in

some cases, a zombie-like state. Neurologist-author

Oliver Sacks featured the syndrome in a book that

was the basis for the 1990 film Awakenings. The

cause of this condition, which lingers for decades,

is still not fully understood.

Prior to the introduction of antiviral therapies for

HIV in the 1980s, dementia was observed in about

25 percent of infected patients. The AIDS virus of-

ten invaded the brain within the first two weeks of

infection, smuggling itself in through infected im-

mune cells and flooding the brain with neurotoxic

proteins capable of laying waste to broad patches of

neural real estate, according to Lena Al-Hartha of

Chicago’s Rush Medical College.

In the wake of the 2003 SARS and the 2012 MERS

outbreaks, autopsies found that pathogens had pen-

etrated the brains of some victims. NINDS’ Nath,

meanwhile, is currently following 200 former Ebola

patients in Liberia still suffering from a mysterious

set of chronic neurological symptoms that don’t

seem to be getting any better with time.

Early efforts to investigate the strange effect

COVID-19 seems to have on the brain of some vic-

tims have been hampered by the dangers of per-

forming autopsies on deceased patients infected

with a deadly pathogen that spreads through the air.

In the first nine months of the pandemic, doctors

performed only 24 studies involving brain autopsies

of 149 individuals, according to one review.

Even so, those early studies, along with more re-

cent ones, are beginning to provide clues.

Clare Bryce, a pathologist at Icahn School of

Medicine at Mount Sinai, is part of a team that has

so far managed to examine the brains of 63 autop-

sied patients. They work in a specially-sealed room,

equipped with a ventilation system designed to keep

air from escaping, accessible only to a single pathol-

ogist at a time clothed in a full-body protective suit

and face shield.

In April, Bryce and her colleagues detailed the

case of a 74-year-old Hispanic male who had arrived

in the ER confused after experiencing several falls at

“Sometimes there was a large area territory of

dead tissue, but more commonly they’re quite small

and patchy within the periphery of the cortex,

and also in the deep surfaces in the brain. Some

looked like they were anemic, some lacked oxygen,

and others had hemorrhages.” — dr. clare bryce