According to the literature, the main neurological complications of COVID-19 are hyposmia, hypogeia, headache, dizziness, myalgia, and severe neurological syndromes like encephalopathy, stroke, and coma. The mechanisms of neurological complications of the acute period are direct viral damage, hypoxic damage, and immune damage due to the activation of inflammation, including autoantibodies. After the end of the acute phase of the disease, neurological complications in the form of asthenic syndrome, vascular syndrome, exacerbation of chronic diseases (deterioration of cognitive and communication functions in patients with autism, schizophrenia, exacerbation of autoimmune neurological diseases, aggravation of the condition of patients with tics, increased frequency of epileptic seizures in adults and children, resumption of epileptic seizures in patients who were previously in stable remission, the debut of epileptic seizures). These disorders are based on the following mechanisms: neuroinflammation, activation of pro-inflammatory cytokines (IL-1, -2, -6, -8, -10, -17, -18, CXCL10, CCL2), formation of autoantibodies, increased permeability of the blood-brain barrier, mitochondrial dysfunction, adrenal and thyroid dysfunction, venous dyscirculation. In the treatment of neurological complications after a COVID-19 infection, it is advisable to use anti-inflammatory therapy, mitochondrial therapy (including the technique of intermittent hypoxic-hyperoxic therapy), detoxication, correction of hormonal status (primarily the state of the adrenal glands and thyroid gland), vasoactive therapy, and symptomatic therapy.
Keywords: COVID-19; autism; complications; epilepsy; mitochondria; review.