MONDAY, Feb. 1, 2021 (HealthDay News) – The National Institutes of Health has launched a new database to collect information and biospecimens from people who have experienced neurological problems associated with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection.
The new database, COVID-19 Neuro Databank/Biobank (NeuroCOVID), will be maintained by NYU Langone Health in New York City. Health care providers are invited to use the web-based data portal to submit deidentified information into the database, along with relevant biospecimens collected during research studies or from previous clinical procedures and tests.
The database will collect information on COVID-19-related neurological symptoms, complications, and outcomes, as well as COVID-19 effects on preexisting neurological conditions. Researchers can access NeuroCOVID to study prevention, management, and treatment of neurological complications associated with COVID-19, while the database will hopefully provide insight into how COVID-19 affects the nervous system as well as how common or rare such complications are.
“The effects of the virus and the body’s response to COVID-19 infection on the brain, spinal cord, nerves, and muscle can be particularly devastating, and contribute to persistence of disability even after the virus is cleared,” Barbara Karp, M.D., program director at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, said in a statement. “There is an urgent need to understand COVID-19-related neurological problems, which not uncommonly include headaches, fatigue, cognitive difficulties, stroke, pain, and sleep disorders as well as some very rare complications of serious infections.”
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