Viruses such as SARS-CoV-2, which caused Covid-19, can cause brain cells to fuse, initiating malfunctions that lead to chronic neurological symptoms, according to an international team of researchers.

To understand, the teams from the universities of Queensland, Macquarie in Australia, and Helsinki in Finland explored how viruses alter the function of the nervous system.

Their research, published in the journal Sciences Advances, showed that Covid-19 causes neurons to undergo a cell fusion process, which has not been seen before.