Hyperactive Immune System Offers Window To The Brain In Degenerative Disease

14 Jul 2008
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/114878.php

Recent findings that a mutant gene can cause abnormal overactivity in the immune system could be significant in the search for treatments of Huntington's disease (HD) and other degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, according to new research led by scientists at UCL (University College London) and published today in the Journal of Experimental Medicine.

HD is a fatal, incurable genetic neurological disease that usually develops in adulthood and causes abnormal involuntary movements, psychiatric symptoms and dementia. The new research by UCL scientists, working in close partnership with scientists from King's College London and institutions in Sweden, the USA and Canada, showed that abnormally high levels of molecules called cytokines - key to the body's immune response - were present in the blood of people carrying the HD gene many years before the onset of symptoms.

Finding these cytokine levels in the blood of HD gene carriers so long before they exhibit symptoms could be an important clue to some of the earliest changes caused by the HD gene. The combinations and levels of cytokines, easily measured from a blood test, could be useful markers to help measure the severity of HD, making it easier and quicker to test new drugs.

In addition, the team showed that white blood cells from HD patients were hyperactive, due to the presence of the abnormal HD gene inside the cell. This hyperactivity was also seen in microglia (the brain's immune cells) suggesting that abnormal immune activation could be one of the earliest abnormalities in HD, and that its signature in the blood could offer a glimpse into the effects of the disease in the brain. Abnormal immune activation could be a target for future treatments aimed at slowing down HD.
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/114878.php


paula

beyond a shadow of a doubt, that much idiopathic PD is related to either drugs or illness activating Toll Like Receptors which promote an immune response that inflames areas in the brain and begins a cell cascade.

There is a company called Idera, which is working on toll like receptor antagonists, which would silence inflammatory cytokines, such as tumor necrosis factor. The company believes they have drug candidates which will be useful in diabetes and MS.

I think that they don't know it yet, but they may have one of the main therapeutic answers to PD.

JMHO.

If you (or a rat) are exposed to bacterial toxins in the womb at the time particular parts of your nervous system are forming, you will as an adult exhibit similar symptoms as those described in the article at the start of the thread. Your brain's microglia go postal and pump out cytokines. The situation is worsened by stress sensitivity from a similar fetal exposure. The two malfunctioning systems amplify each other with two main effects. One is that the brain suffers physical damage and repair is blocked. The other is that elevated levels of cytokines and stress hormones interfere with normal neurotransmitter activity.

The first effect explains the "progressive" nature of PD and the second explains why we are so stress sensitive. It also explains why an infected tooth such as Ron had a few weeks ago becomes such a big deal.

If the hypothesis is correct, then we should look for two things - those that block the immune response of inflammation and those that block the stress response.

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To Paula for posting this article and everyone else who's responded to this thread -- MS person here who just wanted to thank you. The article and all of your comments have been very interesting!!

many parents are discussing similar subjects, especially related to the effect that the multiple childood vaccines have on developing immune systems, and the potential for this causing the "explosion" in children developing so many neurological and other illnesses and disorders.

thanks for posting this Paula. It supports a lot of the other discussions on cytokines, immune system, stress etc that I am following

Are these discussions on NT and, if so, could you give a link or two? It would be interesting to compare notes.

Hi Rick

nope...I wish there were more discussions on the subject here at NT...there are some threads on TS, autism and children's health forums here that discuss the vaccine effects immune system, genetics etc. but not at this level yet.

I have been following discussions on a number of alternative sites and blogs...parents with kids who have TS, autism, PANDAS...lots of convos and from many different angles, but the theme of environmental triggers, stress, genetics and immune system flows thru many of them