But worth considering. I don't think we can talk about any of it in isolation. We know there is an inflammatory factor, a stress factor, and a BBB factor working simultaneously and feeding back into one another. Inflammation opens the BBB. The body produces cortisol to quell inflammation and presumably closes the BBB. But how fast it closes and what amount of cortisol gets into the brain in the process I don't know. Our symptoms don't come and go suddenly so it's probably transitional. Found this-

1. Cell Mol Neurobiol. 2001 Dec;21(6):675-91.

Frequent blood-brain barrier disruption in the human cerebral cortex.

Tomkins O, Kaufer D, Korn A, Shelef I, Golan H, Reichenthal E, Soreq H, Friedman
A.

Department of Physiology and Neurosurgery, Soroka University Hospital, Zlotowski
Center of Neuroscience, Ben-Gurion University, Beersheva, Israel.

1. The blood-brain barrier (BBB) protects the brain from circulating xenobiotic
agents. The pathophysiology, time span, spatial pattern, and pathophysiological
consequences of BBB disruptions are not known. 2. Here, we report the
quantification of BBB disruption by measuring enhancement levels in computerized
tomography brain images. 3. Pathological diffuse enhancement associated with
elevated albumin levels in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) was observed in the
cerebral cortex of 28 out of 43 patients, but not in controls. Four patients
displayed weeks-long focal BBB impairment. In 19 other patients, BBB disruption
was significantly associated with elevated blood pressure, body temperature,
serum cortisol, and stress-associated CSF 'readthrough" acetylcholinesterase.
Multielectrode electroencephalography revealed enhanced slow-wave activities in
areas of focal BBB disruption. Thus, quantification of BBB disruption using
minimally invasive procedures, demonstrated correlations with molecular,
clinical, and physiological stress-associated indices. 4. These sequelae
accompany a wide range of neurological disorders, suggesting that persistent,
detrimental BBB disruption is considerably more frequent than previously assumed.

PMID: 12043841 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]