Some psychiatric and neurological aspects of the asymptomatic and mild course of COVID-19

Abstract

To study neurological and mental disorders associated with the inapparent and mild course of COVID-19. The study included 50 patients (mean age 35.2±11.4 years) admitted to a psychiatric hospital due to depressive spectrum disorders. Patients were divided into two groups: patients (n=16) who had IgG antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 (main group) and patients (n=34) without a history of COVID-19 (comparison group). Patients of the main group showed a difference in the structure of asthenic disorders compared with the comparison group. Also, there was a significant predominance of the severity of asthenic symptoms and anxiety in the structure of psychopathological disorders in depressive spectrum disorders. The viral intoxication contributes to the formation of a kind of asthenic «soil» (with characteristic manifestations). In the future, in the case of the development of any stress-associated disorder, more pronounced psychopathological disorders are noted compared with patients of the comparison group. The authors describe a variant of the course of COVID-19, in which the development of ischemic stroke was the first clinical manifestation of the disease. These disorders are based on the pronounced neurotropic effect of SARS-CoV-2 and its effect on the neurovascular unit.