News by Subject Medicine & Health

This survey-based study examines the clinical course of the loss of sense of smell and taste in a case series of mildly symptomatic patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection.

This survey study of patients with COVID-19 investigates how common the ability to taste and smell was reduced at the onset of the disease.

Scientists have further decoded how mammalian brains perceive odors and distinguish one smell from thousands of others.

A new review of neurological symptoms of COVID-19 patients in current scientific literature reveals the disease poses a global threat to the entire nervous system. About half of hospitalized patients have neurological manifestations of COVID-19, which include headache, dizziness, decreased alertness, difficulty concentrating, disorders of smell and taste, seizures, strokes, weakness and muscle pain.

Researchers at NINDS have identified a specific, front-line defense that limits the infection to the olfactory bulb and protects the neurons of the olfactory bulb from damage due to the infection. Although the location of nasal neurons and their exposure to the outside environment make them an easy target for infection by airborne viruses, viral respiratory infections rarely make their way from the olfactory bulb to the rest of the brain, where they could cause potentially fatal encephalitis.

This case report describes a 25-year-old female radiographer with no significant medical history who had been working in a COVID-19 ward who presented with a mild dry cough that lasted for one day, followed by persistent severe anosmia (loss of smell) and dysgeusia (an impaired sense of taste).

A systematic review of COVID-19 cases finds nearly half of patients reported changes to or complete loss of their sense of taste. The finding furthers the evidence that changes in taste are a valid screening tool for COVID-19.

If an unconscious person responds to smell through a slight change in their nasal airflow pattern -- they are likely to regain consciousness. This is the conclusion from a new study conducted by Weizmann Institute scientists and colleagues at the Loewenstein Rehabilitation Hospital, Israel.

Traditional stroke treatments like clot-dissolving tPA and surgical removal of big clots in the brain are good choices as well when the stroke results from SARS-CoV-2 infection, investigators report.