Grant: Team Grant: JPND Call for Expert Working Groups

The pandemic of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been implicated in inducing direct and indirect neurological, cognitive, and behavioral effects. Since COVID-19 is manifested as a viral pneumonia with respiratory stress as well as overt systemic inflammation, it is likely to accelerate the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative diseases. Several challenges remain in the face of acute and chronic effects of COVID-19, from causing delays in the timely diagnosis and clinical management of neurodegenerative diseases, to modifying their pathogenesis, risk profiles, and prevention potential at population and individual level. To overcome these challenges, discussion among researchers and clinicians with relevant expertise across the globe is warranted. The present JPND call offers a unique opportunity for a global panel of experts to address potential strategies to study the pathophysiology, determinants, long term consequences and trends in cognitive aging, neurodegenerative dementia, and vascular disease in underrepresented populations. As a part of this consortium, we will bring in international key opinion leaders in the field of COVID-19, genetics, immunology, neuroinflammation, neuroimaging, neurodegenerative diseases to evaluate and propose strategies to monitor, prevent and treat neurodegenerative processes likely to occur following COVID-19. The aim of the working group is to generate discussions on hitherto under-researched effects on the acute and chronic effects of COVID-19 on neurodegenerative profile and mental health. Moreover, the working group will likely foster collaborations and attract future finding to promote preclinical and clinical research to investigate mechanisms underlying COVID-19 pathophysiology and neurodegenerative diseases and identify amenable common therapeutic targets.