Vagus nerve inflammation contributes to dysautonomia in COVID-19.
Acta Neuropathol
; 146(3): 387-394, 2023 09.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-37452829
ABSTRACT
Dysautonomia has substantially impacted acute COVID-19 severity as well as symptom burden after recovery from COVID-19 (long COVID), yet the underlying causes remain unknown. Here, we hypothesized that vagus nerves are affected in COVID-19 which might contribute to autonomic dysfunction. We performed a histopathological characterization of postmortem vagus nerves from COVID-19 patients and controls, and detected SARS-CoV-2 RNA together with inflammatory cell infiltration composed primarily of monocytes. Furthermore, we performed RNA sequencing which revealed a strong inflammatory response of neurons, endothelial cells, and Schwann cells which correlated with SARS-CoV-2 RNA load. Lastly, we screened a clinical cohort of 323 patients to detect a clinical phenotype of vagus nerve affection and found a decreased respiratory rate in non-survivors of critical COVID-19. Our data suggest that SARS-CoV-2 induces vagus nerve inflammation followed by autonomic dysfunction which contributes to critical disease courses and might contribute to dysautonomia observed in long COVID.
Palavras-chave
Texto completo:
1
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Disautonomias Primárias
/
COVID-19
Tipo de estudo:
Etiology_studies
Limite:
Humans
Idioma:
En
Ano de publicação:
2023
Tipo de documento:
Article