Publication date: Dec 18, 2025
Investments in SARS-CoV-2 research provide a unique opportunity to explore how microbes may contribute to neurological conditions, an area of investigation that has been chronically underfunded. As exemplified by HIV/AIDS funding, crisis-driven research can yield broader biomedical advances, including spillover effects that address unanticipated and unmet medical needs. Leveraging newly established SARS-CoV-2 funding opportunities to study immune crosstalk and genetic predispositions could reveal therapeutic pathways and biomarkers for individuals who are vulnerable to infection-related dementia risk and neuropsychiatric symptoms. Despite the vast consequences of SARS-CoV-2, research investments following this pandemic may have long lasting benefits for other scientific endeavors, including insights for microbial contributions to neurodegenerative disease.
| Concepts | Keywords |
|---|---|
| Biomedical | COVID-19 |
| Dementia | Funding |
| Hiv | Infection |
| Investments | Neurodegeneration |
| Underfunded | Neuropsychiatric |
| SARS-CoV-2 |
Semantics
| Type | Source | Name |
|---|---|---|
| disease | MESH | COVID-19 pandemic |
| disease | MESH | AIDS |
| disease | MESH | genetic predispositions |
| disease | MESH | infection |
| disease | MESH | dementia |
| disease | MESH | neurodegenerative disease |