A paper from last December piqued my curiosity:

COVID-19 and anti-N-methyl-d-aspartate receptor (anti-NMDAR) encephalitis: Are we facing an increase in the prevalence of autoimmune encephalitis?

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jmv.26745

What could be causing such a very specific autoimmune encephalitis?

The Spike Protein of SARS-CoV-2 is inducing Glutamate Excitoxivity:

Glutamate Excitotoxicity Is Involved in the Induction of Paralysis in Mice after Infection by a Human Coronavirus with a Single Point Mutation in Its Spike Protein

https://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3209392/

This excitoxiticy is inducing the creation of anti-NMDA-NR1 antibodies and anti-NMDA-NR2A/B antibodies:

Glutamate receptor antibodies in neurological diseases

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25081016/

I believe this the cause for a vast majority of the neurological problems we are seeing in the acute phase and in Long COVID.

These autoimmune anti-glutamate receptor antibodies can bind neurons in few brain regions, activate glutamate receptors, decrease glutamate receptor’s expression, impair glutamate-induced signaling and function, activate Blood Brain Barrier endothelial cells, kill neurons, damage the brain, induce behavioral/psychiatric/cognitive abnormalities and Ataxia in animal models, and can be removed or silenced in some patients by immunotherapy.