Vagus nerve inflammation contributes to dysautonomia in COVID-19 (preprint)

Dysautonomia has substantially impacted acute COVID-19 severity as well as symptom burden after recovery from COVID-19 (long COVID), yet the underlying causes remain unknown. Here, we show that SARS-CoV-2 is detectable in postmortem vagus nerve specimen together with inflammatory cell infiltration derived primarily from monocytes. This is associated with a decreased respiratory rate in non-survivors of critical COVID-19. Our data suggest that SARS-CoV-2 induces vagus nerve inflammation followed by autonomic dysfunction.