BACKGROUND: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic started as an outbreak in China and soon crossed borders to affect the populations in all countries of the world . During the initial course of the disease, COVID-19 was perceived as a pneumonia-like illness . However, recent findings of COVID-19 patients suggest that the virus has the potential to disseminate to different tissues and organs, and cause significant complications .

SUMMARY: Neurological symptoms are of great significance as these usually present in and complicate critical cases . Many case reports and case series have documented the findings of neurological complications in COVID-19 patients . From the existing data, the most frequent symptoms in these patients were broadly classified into the central nervous system (CNS), peripheral nervous system, and skeletal muscular symptoms . CNS symptoms include meningitis, encephalitis, cerebrovascular complications, peripheral nervous system symptoms include anosmia, ageusia, and skeletal muscular symptoms include myalgias . It is postulated that the cause may be direct CNS injury through blood and neuronal pathways or indirectly because of an immune-mediated response, hypoxia caused by decreased oxygen saturation, or by the binding of subacute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2 to the host angiotensin-converting enzyme-2 receptors . Striking radiologic findings in COVID-19 patients with neurological symptoms have also emerged .

CONCLUSIONS: As subacute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2 may potentially have lethal implications on the nervous system, it is important that neurologists are better informed about the spectrum of clinical manifestations, radiologic findings, and likely mechanisms of injury . Understanding the symptoms and radiologic imaging allows clinicians to consider brain imaging in any patient with suspected COVID-19 and neurological symptoms.