A recent study suggests that common viruses, including COVID-19 and Herpes Simplex Virus-1 (HSV-1), may be quietly invading our brains and contributing to devastating diseases like Alzheimer’s. The research, published in the journal ACS Chemical Neuroscience, found that these viruses can cause protein clumping in the brain, a hallmark of neurodegenerative diseases.
The study looked at cerebrospinal fluid samples from healthy participants and exposed them to live HSV-1 and ultraviolet-inactivated SARS-CoV-2 viruses. The results showed that CSF exposed to the viruses triggered protein aggregation, while samples without viral exposure remained unaffected.
Many of the proteins identified in these clumps are linked to neurodegenerative diseases, including amyloid plaques found in patients with Alzheimer’s, as well as other conditions like kuru and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. The researchers speculate that viruses may catalyse protein aggregation, depleting essential proteins and contributing to neurodegeneration.
The study calls for further research into the mechanisms of virus-related neurological disorders and emphasizes the need for robust patient databases and more sensitive methods to detect viruses in the brain. Understanding these connections could provide valuable insights into the causes of long-term neurological symptoms following viral infections.
Source: https://www.downtoearth.org.in/health/covid-19-herpes-viruses-could-be-invading-our-brains-fuelling-diseases-like-alzheimers