Chronic Neuropsychiatric Sequelae of SARS-CoV2: Protocol and Methods from the Alzheimer’s Association Global Consortium

Abstract

Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has caused over 3.5 million deaths worldwide and affected more than 160 million people. At least twice as many have been infected but remained asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic. Though initially understood as a respiratory illness, COVID-19 includes central nervous system manifestations mediated by inflammation, cerebrovascular, anoxic and/or viral neurotoxicity mechanisms. Over one third of patients with COVID-19 develop neurologic problems during the acute phase of the illness, including loss of sense of smell or taste, seizures, and stroke. In a portion of affected persons, damage or functional changes to the brain result in chronic sequelae including and mounting evidence indicates that cognitive and neuropsychiatric complications may be independent from the severity of the original pulmonary illness. It behooves the scientific and medical community to attempt to understand the molecular and/or systemic factors linking COVID-19 to neurologic illness, both short and long term. This manuscript describes what is known so far in terms of links between COVID-19, the brain, neurological symptoms, and Alzheimer’s Disease and related dementia, with a focus on risk factors and possible molecular, inflammatory, and viral pathways. It also provides an extensive description of the Alzheimer’s Association Consortium on Chronic Neuropsychiatric Sequelae of SARSCoV-2 infection (CNS SC2) harmonized methodology to address these questions in a worldwide network of researchers and institutions .