Zika ‘can cause’ havoc in brains

The zika virus can “wreak havoc” in the brains of adults, causing long-term damage that may mirror the effects of Alzheimer’s disease, new research suggests.

The mosquito-borne infection has already been linked to microcephaly — a serious birth defect in which babies are born with small heads and brain damage.

Until now, the virus was thought to have a minimal effect on adults other than pregnant women.

Most people infected show no obvious symptoms while others may experience flu-like effects, such as fever, headache and joint pain.

The new findings indicate that the long-term impact of zika infection in adults could be far more serious and sinister. Experiments using mice engineered to mimic human zika infection show the virus attacks immature cells in the adult brain vital to learning and memory.

Over time, loss of these ‘progenitor’ stem cells could lead to brain shrinkage and the kind of mental impairment seen in Alzheimer’s, say the scientists.

Professor Sujan Shresta, a member of the team from the La Jolla Institute of Allergy and Immunology in California, USA, said: “Zika can clearly enter the brain of adults and can wreak havoc. But it’s a complex disease. It’s catastrophic for early brain development, yet the majority of adults who are infected with zika rarely show detectable symptoms.

“Its effect on the adult brain may be more subtle, and now we know what to look for,” she said.

The study is the first to focus on the impact of zika infection on the adult brain.

The scientists used fluorescent biomarker ‘tags’ to indicate when adult brain cells were invaded by the virus. Their results, published in journal Cell Stem Cell, show that the virus targets two specific regions of the adult brain critical to learning and memory.

Professor Joseph Gleeson, from Rockefeller University, said: “Our results are pretty dramatic in the parts of the brain that lit up, it was like a Christmas tree.

“It was very clear that the virus wasn’t affecting the whole brain evenly, like people are seeing in the foetus. In the adult, it’s only these two populations that are very specific to the stem cells that are affected by virus. These cells are special, and somehow very susceptible to the infection.

“Based on our findings, getting infected with zika as an adult may not be as innocuous as people think,” he said. While healthy individuals may be able to resist the virus, those with weakened immune systems could be at serious risk, said the researchers.

Prof Gleeson added: “In more subtle cases, the virus could theoretically impact long-term memory or risk of depression, but tools do not exist to test the long-term effects of zika on adult stem cell populations.”