SynthesisTranslational psychiatry2025
Viral infections and the risk of neurodegenerative diseases: a comprehensive meta-analysis and systematic review.
Synthesis in Translational psychiatry, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers.
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Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed.
- Interpreting Viral Associations in Neurodegenerative Diseases.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Review
- Chemokines in Alzheimer's Disease: Early Defence, Late Damage and the Impact of Sex and Infection.Basic & clinical pharmacology & toxicology · 2026Review
- Alpha-synuclein at the crossroads of host-virus interactions: immunological roles beyond the nervous system.Journal of virology · 2026Review
- Viral Infections and Neurodegenerative Diseases: Reinterpreting the Crosstalk Through a Dual-Role Lens.Current microbiology · 2026Review
- Cytomegalovirus and Aging-How Can the Field Move Forward?The Journal of infectious diseases · 2026Article
- The Immune-Chemokine Axis in Alzheimer's Disease: Roles of Adaptive Immune System in Neuroinflammation and Disease Progression.Biomolecules · 2026Review
- A Novel Competing Endogenous RNA Linked to Dysregulated Neuroinflammation in Alzheimer's Disease.Cells · 2026Article
- Article
- Association between Alzheimer's/Parkinson's diseases and cancers: Modifying effects of alcohol consumption and viral infections revealed by an ecological study.Alzheimer's & dementia (Amsterdam, Netherlands)Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
11 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundViral infections have been implicated in the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative diseases (NDs); however, evidence linking specific viruses to Alzheimer's disease (AD), Parkinson's disease (PD), and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) remains inconclusive. This study conducted a meta-analysis and systematic review to investigate these associations.
methodsThorough searches were conducted across Embase, PubMed, Cochrane Library, Web of Science and Scopus until May 18, 2025, to identify observational studies investigating the relationship between viral infections and the risk of NDs, including AD, PD, and ALS. Meta-analyses were executed using a random-effects model with Stata MP18.0.
resultsA total of 34,417 articles were identified, of which 73 met the eligibility criteria for inclusion in the meta-analysis, and 48 were included in the systematic review. The analysis demonstrated that infections with cytomegalovirus (CMV) (odds ratio [OR] = 1.41; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.03, 1.93), severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) (OR = 1.88; 95% CI: 1.53, 2.32), hepatitis C virus (HCV) (OR = 1.39; 95% CI: 1.14, 1.69), and human herpesvirus (HHV) (OR = 1.24; 95% CI: 1.02, 1.51) were associated with an increased risk of AD. Regarding PD, infections with hepatitis B virus (HBV) (OR = 1.18; 95% CI: 1.04, 1.35) and HCV (OR = 1.29; 95% CI: 1.18, 1.41) were identified as risk factors. Conversely, no significant correlation was found between any viral infection and the risk of ALS.
conclusionThis meta-analysis supports the role of select viral infections in AD and PD pathogenesis. However, no association was found between viral infections and ALS, warranting further large, multicenter, and longitudinal studies to elucidate mechanisms and confirm causality.
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