Neuropsychological long-COVID: neurologic or psychiatric origin?

ABSTRACT

Among the long-COVID symptoms, neuropsychological sequelae are frequent after an infection by SARS-CoV-2, whatever the severity of the respiratory disease in the acute phase. These deficits seem to result from a neurological disorder, but also from psychiatric symptoms. Not only inflammatory components, which can play a major role in the genesis of the neuropsychological sequelae, but also the hypotheses of vascular systemic lesions, the neurotropism of SARS-CoV-2, or the effect of the stress and the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis (HPA) are suggested. Psychiatric complications due to SSARS-CoV-2 infection would partly explain these neuropsychological sequelae.