The above movie shows an immune cell caught in the act of tending the brain – it's just eaten away unnecessary connections, or synapses, between neurons.

That's not something these cells, known as microglia, were previously thought to do. As immune cells, it was thought that their job was to rid the body of unwanted pathogens and debris, by engulfing and digesting them.

... The involvement of microglia in the brain's development has started to be recognized only recently. The latest research finds that microglia tune into the brain's cues, akin to the way they survey their environment for invading microbes, and get rid of excess synapses the same way they'd dispatch these invaders – by eating them.

It's a whole other way of understanding how the healthy brain develops – at the hands of cells that were once thought to be merely nerve "glue" (the literal meaning of "glia" from the Greek), playing a protective role to neurons, say investigators Beth Stevens, PhD, and Dori Schafer, PhD, of the F.M. Kirby Neurobiology Center at Boston Children's Hospital.

"In the field of neuroscience, glia have often been ignored," says Stevens.
"But glia aren't the nerve glue, they're actively communicating with neurons. People have gotten a new respect for glia and are hungry to know more about them."

Such knowledge could eventually shed light on brain disorders ranging from autism to Alzheimer's...

https://www.massdevice.com/news/immu...ss-connections