Folia Parasitologica 67:015 (2020) | DOI: 10.14411/fp.2020.015

Neurological disorder and psychosocial aspects of cerebral malaria: what is new on its pathogenesis and complications? A minireview.

Arif Jamal Siddiqui^1#*, Mohd Adnan^1#, Sadaf Jahan², Whitni Redman³, Mοhd Saeed¹, Mitesh Patel⁴

^# Both authors have contributed equally and should be considered as first authors,

¹ Department of Biology, College of Science, University of Hail, Hail, PO Box 2440, Saudi Arabia;

² Department of Medical Laboratory, College of Applied Medical Sciences, Majmaah University, Majmaah city, Saudi Arabia;

³ Surgery Department, Division of Biomedical Research, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, Lubbock, Texas, USA;

⁴ Bapalal Vaidya Botanical Research Centre, Department of Biosciences, Veer Narmad South Gujarat University, Surat, Gujarat, India

Recently, malaria is remain considered as the most prevalent infectious disease, affecting the human health globally. High morbidity and mortality worldwide is often allied with cerebral malaria (CM) based disorders of the central nervous system, especially across many tropical and sub-tropical regions. These disorders are characterised by the infection of Plasmodium species, which leads to acute or chronic neurological disorders, even after having active/effective antimalarial drugs. Furthermore, even during the treatment, individual remain sensitive for neurological impairments in the form of decrease blood flow and vascular obstruction in brain including many more other changes. This review briefly explains and update on the epidemiology, burden of disease, pathogenesis and role of CM in neurological disorders with behaviour and function in mouse and human models. Moreover, the social stigma, which plays an important role in neurological disorders and a factor for assessing CM, is also discussed in this review.

Keywords: Antimalarial, Plasmodium, neuropathology, iRBC, cognitive disability

Received: October 11, 2019; Revised: January 20, 2020; Accepted: March 6, 2020; Published online: May 27, 2020  Show citation