Prions are proteins that cause fatal and incurable neurodegenerative diseases in humans and animals, some of which include sheep scrapie, chronic wasting disease (CWD) of cervids, Creutzfeldt-Jakob.
In a recent study published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, researchers in Spain described the effectiveness of a modified vaccinia virus Ankara (MVA) vector severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) vaccine candidate in protecting against SARS-CoV-2 infection in the brain using a mouse model.
Although the pathology of the respiratory system is the main impact of the COVID-19 disease, caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, many of the patients manifest important neurological symptoms, such as loss of smell (anosmia), headaches, malaise, cognitive loss, epilepsy, ataxia and encephalopathy, among others.