ArticleJournal of the neurological sciences2021
Intrathecal inflammatory responses in the absence of SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid in the CSF of COVID-19 hospitalized patients.
Article in Journal of the neurological sciences, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 23 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
23 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 40 citations in OpenAlex.
- Inflammatory Response Associated with West Nile Neuroinvasive Disease: A Systematic Review.Viruses · 2024Pooled it
- Cerebrospinal fluid cytokines in COVID-19: a review and meta-analysis.Journal of neurology · 2023Pooled it
- Human brain matters: Navigating the neuropathology of COVID-19.Brain pathology (Zurich, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Aggregation potency and proinflammatory effects of SARS-CoV-2 proteins.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Elevated neuroinflammation, autoimmunity, and altered IgG glycosylation profile in the cerebral spinal fluid of severe COVID-19 patients.Brain, behavior, and immunity · 2025Article
- Clinical, thyroid metabolic, and inflammatory features in pediatric patients with post-acute COVID-19 neuropsychiatric symptoms.BMC infectious diseases · 2025Article
- Cerebellitis following COVID-19 infection: A case-based systematic review and pooled analysis.Heliyon · 2024Article
- Melatonin: a ferroptosis inhibitor with potential therapeutic efficacy for the post-COVID-19 trajectory of accelerated brain aging and neurodegeneration.Molecular neurodegeneration · 2024Review
- Type 2 and Non-type 2 Inflammation in the Upper Airways: Cellular and Molecular Alterations in Olfactory Neuroepithelium Cell Populations.Current allergy and asthma reports · 2024Review
- New approaches for understanding the potential role of microbes in Alzheimer's disease.Brain, behavior, & immunity - health · 2024Review
- Blood-brain barrier disruption and sustained systemic inflammation in individuals with long COVID-associated cognitive impairment.Nature neuroscience · 2024Article
- COVID-19: a multi-organ perspective.Frontiers in cellular and infection microbiology · 2024Review
- SARS-CoV-2 infects epithelial cells of the blood-cerebrospinal fluid barrier rather than endothelial cells or pericytes of the blood-brain barrier.Fluids and barriers of the CNS · 2023Article
- SARS-CoV-2 and the nervous system: current perspectives.Archives of virology · 2023Review
- SARS-CoV-2 envelope protein triggers depression-like behaviors and dysosmia via TLR2-mediated neuroinflammation in mice.Journal of neuroinflammation · 2023Article
- Review of Neurological Manifestations of SARS-CoV-2.Cureus · 2023Review
- Dopamine Transmission Imbalance in Neuroinflammation: Perspectives on Long-Term COVID-19.International journal of molecular sciences · 2023Review
- Proteomic analysis and identification reveal the anti-inflammatory mechanism of clofazimine on lipopolysaccharide-induced acute lung injury in mice.Inflammation research : official journal of the European Histamine Research Society ... [et al.] · 2022Article
- Neuroinflammation and COVID-19.Current opinion in neurobiology · 2022Review
- What SARS-CoV-2 does to our brains.Immunity · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
20 authors at 6 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveLittle is known about CSF profiles in patients with acute COVID-19 infection and neurological symptoms. Here, CSF was tested for SARS-CoV-2 RNA and inflammatory cytokines and chemokines and compared to controls and patients with known neurotropic pathogens.
methodsCSF from twenty-seven consecutive patients with COVID-19 and neurological symptoms was assayed for SARS-CoV-2 RNA using quantitative reverse transcription PCR (RT-qPCR) and unbiased metagenomic sequencing. Assays for blood brain barrier (BBB) breakdown (CSF:serum albumin ratio (Q-Alb)), and proinflammatory cytokines and chemokines (IL-6, IL-8, IL-15, IL-16, monocyte chemoattractant protein -1 (MCP-1) and monocyte inhibitory protein - 1β (MIP-1β)) were performed in 23 patients and compared to CSF from patients with HIV-1 (16 virally suppressed, 5 unsuppressed), West Nile virus (WNV) (n = 4) and 16 healthy controls (HC).
resultsMedian CSF cell count for COVID-19 patients was 1 white blood cell/μL; two patients were infected with a second pathogen (Neisseria, Cryptococcus neoformans). No CSF samples had detectable SARS-CoV-2 RNA by either detection method. In patients with COVID-19 only, CSF IL-6, IL-8, IL-15, and MIP-1β levels were higher than HC and suppressed HIV (corrected-p < 0.05). MCP-1 and MIP-1β levels were higher, while IL-6, IL-8, IL-15 were similar in COVID-19 compared to WNV patients. Q-Alb correlated with all proinflammatory markers, with IL-6, IL-8, and MIP-1β (r ≥ 0.6, p < 0.01) demonstrating the strongest associations.
conclusionsLack of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in CSF is consistent with pre-existing literature. Evidence of intrathecal proinflammatory markers in a subset of COVID-19 patients with BBB breakdown despite minimal CSF pleocytosis is atypical for neurotropic pathogens.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.