A research team consisting of neuropathologists, pathologists, forensic doctors as well as virologists from the Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin and other institutions led by Prof. Dr. Frank Heppner analyzed tissue samples from deceased COVID-19 patients. They wanted to find out in which way the novel coronavirus can enter the brain and how the immune system reacts to the virus there.
They reconstructed that SARS-CoV-2 enters the brain via the nerve cells of the olfactory mucosa.
The research team published their work in Nature Neuroscience:
Meinhardt J et al.(2020). Olfactory transmucosal SARS-CoV-2 invasion as port of central nervous system entry in individuals with COVID-19 Nat Neurosci 2020. doi: 10.1038/s41593-020-00758-5
Source:
https://www.charite.de/service/pressemitteilung/artikel/detail/wie_sars_cov_2_in_das_gehirn_gelangt/