AUTHOR=Moura Luciana Monteiro , Ferreira Vinicius Leati de Rossi , Loureiro Rafael Maffei , de Paiva Joselisa Péres Queiroz , Rosa-Ribeiro Rafaela , Amaro Edson , Soares Milena Botelho Pereira , Machado Birajara Soares TITLE=The Neurobiology of Zika Virus: New Models, New Challenges JOURNAL=Frontiers in Neuroscience VOLUME=15 YEAR=2021 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnins.2021.654078 DOI=10.3389/fnins.2021.654078 ISSN=1662-453X ABSTRACT=

The Zika virus (ZIKV) attracted attention due to one striking characteristic: the ability to cross the placental barrier and infect the fetus, possibly causing severe neurodevelopmental disruptions included in the Congenital Zika Syndrome (CZS). Few years after the epidemic, the CZS incidence has begun to decline. However, how ZIKV causes a diversity of outcomes is far from being understood. This is probably driven by a chain of complex events that relies on the interaction between ZIKV and environmental and physiological variables. In this review, we address open questions that might lead to an ill-defined diagnosis of CZS. This inaccuracy underestimates a large spectrum of apparent normocephalic cases that remain underdiagnosed, comprising several subtle brain abnormalities frequently masked by a normal head circumference. Therefore, new models using neuroimaging and artificial intelligence are needed to improve our understanding of the neurobiology of ZIKV and its true impact in neurodevelopment.