  The COVID-19 pandemic has shaken the world unprecedentedly, where it has
affected the vast global population both socially and economically. The
pandemic has also opened our eyes to the many threats that novel virus
infections can pose for humanity. While numerous unknowns are being
investigated in terms of the distributed damage that the virus can do to the
human body, recent studies have also shown that the infection can lead to
lifelong sequelae that could affect other parts of the body, and one example is
the brain. As part of this work, we investigate how viral infection can affect
the brain by modelling and simulating a neuron's behaviour under demyelination
that is affected by the cytokine storm. We quantify the effects of
cytokine-induced demyelination on the propagation of action potential signals
within a neuron. We used information and communication theory analysis on the
signal propagated through the axonal pathway under different intensity levels
of demyelination to analyse these effects. Our simulations demonstrate that
virus-induced degeneration can play a role in the signal power and spiking rate
and the probability of releasing neurotransmitters and compromising the
propagation and processing of information between the neurons. We also propose
a transfer function that models these attenuation effects that degenerates the
action potential, where this model has the potential to be used as a framework
for the analysis of virus-induced neurodegeneration that can pave the way to
improved understanding of virus-induced demyelination.
