Neurotropic virus is a virus that can infect nerve cells ( neurons ) [1] . Because of this, neurotropic viruses are inaccessible to immune cells , since the immune response acts only within the circulatory system .
Content
Terminology
A pathogenic agent is said to be neuroinvasive if it is able to infect or invade central nervous system neurons, and is neurovirulent if it can cause a nervous system disease. The most famous neuroinvasive viruses are rabies virus , combining high neuroinvasiveness and high neurovirulence, and herpes simplex virus , which has low neuroinvasiveness and high neurovirulence. Other viruses, such as poliovirus , can spread through nerve cells, but more often they travel through the circulatory system (this is called viremia ).
Examples
Neurotropic viruses can cause acute infections , including Japanese encephalitis , Venezuelan equine encephalitis, and California encephalitis , polio , mumps , measles , flu, and rabies . Such infections also include diseases caused by the Coxsackie virus type A and herpes viruses , such as herpes simplex virus, chickenpox virus , cytomegalovirus , HHV-6 and Epstein-Barr virus [2] .
Research Usage
Neurotropic viruses are increasingly used in research as work tools and because of their potential role in drug production. In particular, they were used to improve understanding of the mechanism of circular signal transmission in the nervous system [3] [4] .