Chikungunya virus: The neurology

Abstract

[29] The most distinctive MRI abnormalities observed in the course of neonatal chikungunya encephalopathy were exclusively located in the white matter and consisted of areas of reversible diffusion restriction, a pattern classically associated with transient ischemia with cytotoxic edema, [26] that does not imply neuronal death. [30] In patients with CHIKV infection with neurological complications, both adults and children, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) was positive for real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) (which detects the genome of virus particles during an active infection) and IgM serology (which looks for an immune response to recent infection).