The role of infectious agents in the development of neurodegenerative diseases

Abstract

Actually, there is no consensus about the causes of the development in most neurodegenerative diseases. Recent international publications describe various hypotheses of the genesis of such diseases. Infectious is considered as one of them, assuming an infectious agent can trigger a cascade of pathological processes that eventually lead to the manifestation of various neurodegenerative diseases. The direct relationship between infectious invasion and the development of neurodegenerative diseases is not fully proved yet, but these publications confirm the hypothesis that a variety of pathogens (viruses, bacteria, intracellular parasites etc.) can induce the process of neuronal inflammation with subsequent neurodegeneration. As a result of the scientific research, various ways of penetration of infectious agents into the central nervous system have been studied and proven. In the case of neuroinfections already studied, inflammatory and alterative changes in nervous tissue occur with the direct participation of neuroglia and cells of the immune system, which may be part of the universal trigger mechanism of the neurodegenerative process. At the same time, in the case of a number of diseases, the primary role of specific infectious agents is possible. It has been shown that neurological complications of a novel coronavirus infection can also occur as a result of both direct cytopathic action of the pathogen or activation of neuroinflammation processes. Of course, this hypothesis of neurodegenerative pathology requires a comprehensive analysis and subsequent confirmation, however, the investigation of molecular and cellular mechanisms of neuroinflammation and neurodegeneration already opens up broad prospects for finding possible pathogenetic therapy of these diseases (bibliography: 42 refs)