Zika Virus May Also Affect Adult Brain Functions

The mosquito-borne virus looks like it can have an effect on adult brain cells, a new study suggests. This is new discovery, considering that just several months ago, health officials were able to verify that the virus can cause a range of congenital birth defects like microcephaly and brain damage in infants born to mothers affected with the disease during pregnancy.

#Zika may damage brain cells in adults, not just in developing fetuses https://t.co/H22bsY6CST pic.twitter.com/QGt2Q1uUqs

— China Xinhua News (@XHNews) August 18, 2016

The effect of Zika on adults, according to Newsweek, has not been studied widely until lately. Although most adults who contract the virus seem asymptomatic, there have been some researchers who suspected that the Zika may have effects on the adult central nervous system in ways that cannot be fully understood yet.

It seems that they were right. A new study published in Cell Stem Cell contains some of the initial research at how the virus may affect the brains of infected adults. Still in its preliminary stage and conducted on mice, it does, however, provide clear evidence that health officials may need to closely monitor neurological and cognitive functions even after the infection has been resolved.

Lead author of the study, Dr. Joseph Gleeson, an expert in pediatric brain disease at The Rockerfeller University in New York said, "This is one potential consequence we need to look at." According to Reuters, Gleeson wanted to see whether or not Zika could attack neuro cells in adult mice, so he injected the virus into lab mice and examined their brains for infection. He found that the hippocampus "lit up like a Christmas tree and wiped out the stem cell population."

He also added, "Based on our findings, getting infected with Zika as an adult may not be as innocuous as people think." Appearing only recently, Zika already affected 66 countries and territories, and earlier this month, researchers from the Notre Dame University already estimated as many as 93 million people in Latin America and the Caribbean affected with the disease.