Eckerström, M;
Nilsson, S;
Zetterberg, H;
Blennow, K;
Grahn, A;
(2020)
Cognitive impairment without altered levels of cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers in patients with encephalitis caused by varicella-zoster virus: a pilot study.
Scientific Reports
, 10
, Article 22400. 10.1038/s41598-020-79800-2.
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Abstract
Varicella-zoster virus (VZV) is one of the most common agents causing viral infections of the central nervous system (CNS). VZV encephalitis is associated with severe neurological sequelae, despite antiviral treatment. Cognitive impairment has been reported and VZV has been associated with dementia. Our aim was to investigate the cognitive impairment and cerebrospinal fuid biomarkers in a follow-up study of patients with VZV encephalitis. Thirteen patients with VZV encephalitis, diagnosed by detection of VZV DNA in cerebrospinal fuid (CSF) by PCR and concomitant symptoms of encephalitis, were included. Neuropsychological assessment in parallel with a lumbar puncture to obtain CSF was performed 1.5–7 years after acute disease. The CSF biomarkers neuroflament light chain (NFL), S100B, glial fbrillary acidic protein (GFAP), amyloid-β (Aβ) 40 and Aβ42, total tau (t-tau) and phosphorylated tau (p-tau) were analysed and compared to controls (n= 24). Cognitive impairment was shown in the domains of executive functions and speed/attention and to a minor degree in the domains of learning/memory and language, indicated by a signifcantly poorer performance on seven neuropsychological test variables. No convincing evidence of alterations in concentrations of biomarkers in the CSF were shown. Our results indicate that patients with VZV encephalitis sufer from cognitive impairment long time after acute disease. Importantly, these impairments do not seem to be accompanied by biomarker evidence of ongoing neuronal or astrocytic injury/activation or induction of dementia-related brain pathologies by the infection.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Cognitive impairment without altered levels of cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers in patients with encephalitis caused by varicella-zoster virus: a pilot study |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1038/s41598-020-79800-2 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-79800-2 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology > Neurodegenerative Diseases |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10118731 |
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