Emerging Knowledge of the Neurobiology of COVID-19

Many patients with COVID-19 will experience acute or longer-term neuropsychiatric complications. The neurobiological mechanisms behind these are beginning to emerge; however, the neurotropic hypothesis is not strongly supported by clinical data. The inflammatory response to SARS-CoV-2 is likely to be responsible for delirium and other common acute neuropsychiatric manifestations. Vascular abnormalities such as endotheliopathies contribute to stroke and cerebral microbleeds, with their attendant neuropsychiatric sequelae. Longer-term neuropsychiatric syndromes fall into 2 broad categories: neuropsychiatric deficits occurring after severe (hospitalized) COVID-19 and “long COVID,” which occurs in many patients with a milder acute COVID-19 illness.