New research is suggesting adults, and not just newborns, may also be in danger of brain damage brought on by the Zika virus.
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La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology researcher Sujan Shresta co-led the study with Joseph Gleeson of the The Rockefeller University.
Among these are populations of cells that serve to replace lost or damaged neurons throughout adulthood, and are also thought to be critical to learning and memory, the release noted.
Results showed that adult brain cells, particularly ones that are thought to be crucial in learning and memory, may be vulnerable to infection.
The Zika virus is already linked to Guillain-Barré syndrome, a rare though temporary condition in which the immune system attacks nerves and causes weakness in the lower extremities and even paralysis.
Things are much worse in the US territory of Puerto Rico, where federal health officials declared a public health emergency on Friday because Zika is spreading so rapidly among residents there.
UC San Diego’s Jair Lage de Siqueira-Neto, who is now screening tens of thousands of potential drug candidates for Zika, said it’s still unknown whether the virus can cross the blood-brain barrier in healthy adult humans.
WASHINGTON (AP) – Wanted: Volunteers willing to be infected with the Zika virus for science.
Muotri believes that if the virus does manage to get into adult brains, it could have “consequences for memory and learning”.
The disturbing development comes as the USA begins testing new vaccines, but those trials require volunteers, who will be injected with the virus to see if those experimental vaccines work. It’s catastrophic for early brain development, yet the majority of adults who are infected with Zika rarely show detectable symptoms. But Shresta said this new finding in mice created to be vulnerable to Zika shows some people, especially those with weak immune systems, could experience long-term neurological damage.
Q: Are vaccines aimed at pregnant women?
Before the brain fully develops in specialized regions, a fetus’ brain is entirely made of neural progenitor cells, a sort of brain stem cells.
“The results of this mouse study show, “for the first time, that [Zika virus] can affect adult neurogenesis by increasing cell death in both adult neurogenic niches”, the anterior subventricular and subgranular zones”, Patricia Garcez, who studies neuoroplasticity at Brazil’s Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and was not involved in the work, wrote in an email to The Scientist. But now, local scientists are discovering that the virus could also be effecting the brains of adults.
Just what effect Zika infection might have on the adult human brain over time remains unclear. “Sometimes findings like these don’t exactly translate iinto treatments, but it does help us understand why these abnormalities are occurring”, he says.
The price tag of course includes practical efforts to stop the spread of the virus by doubling the number of mosquito traps and increasing spraying. Led by Erol Fikrig, the researchers examined Zika infection of three different cell types in the placenta, including cytotrophoblasts, fibroblasts, and placental macrophages.
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And what they also found was that when adults get Zika, more cells in the progenitor areas were dying and less cells were being regenerated. “If researchers continue down the path, it could shift how we counsel and protect those women who are at risk for Zika”. Currently, women who are infected with Zika or are at risk of exposure have increased screening done – and that’s it, Sarah Yamaguchi, M.D., an ob/gyn at Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles, tells Yahoo Beauty.
