OCD? Your Immune System Could Be to Blame
 

(condition thought to be neurological in etiology is immunological??? Rick, it's those microglia once again!)

http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceno...could-be-.html

a study of mice suggests that faulty immune cells prompt such compulsive behaviors. The results raise the possibility of treating obsessive-compulsive disorder by targeting the immune system rather than the brain...


...When Capecchi and colleagues began looking for the Hoxb8-making cells in the mouse brain, they expected to find that the source was neurons that control grooming. To their surprise, the only cells producing Hoxb8 were microglia, immune cells that guard against pathogens. Although some microglia start out in the brain, others are born in the bone marrow and move in. Overall, adult mice with faulty Hoxb8 harbored about 15% fewer microglia in the brain than normal.

To test whether defective microglia provoke mice to feats of extreme cleanliness, the researchers performed bone marrow transplants. Transferring marrow from Hoxb8-lacking mice into healthy rodents provoked compulsive grooming, the researchers report in the 28 May issue of Cell. And when mice deficient in Hoxb8 received marrow from healthy animals, they cut back on their ablutions. Before this finding, “nobody would say you can cure a [pathological] behavior with a bone marrow transplant,” Capecchi says.

... Previous studies have implied a link between the immune system and obsessive-compulsive disorder and other neuropsychiatric conditions, Capecchi says. “Here, we say there is a direct connection.”

..

thanks
 

Good find, olsen, again, many thanks! I am reading more and more about the immune system being suspected in conditions previously considered strictly neurological....two countries are working on a PD vaccine aimed at inflammation (here, at the U of Nebraska-Dr. Gendelman, and Austria, the Affiris (sp?) company).

It makes sense, particularly in light of the vast disparity in symtoms and severity of same.

One thing I would add, however, is that to get the big picture one must remember that where you find inflammation and the immune system, you are going to find cortisol and the endocrine system controlling it.

From an unfinished book-

" Parkinson’s is, in large part, the failure of an attempt by the body to use the endocrine system to correct a problem arising from the immune response to a fetal tragedy. Damage to the nervous system is one of the results. Inflammation can damage neurons. Cortisol can damage neurons. And the awakened microglia within the brain itself can become the body’s worst enemy of all as they respond to LPS by running amok and inadvertently killing the cells they were meant to protect.

Another analogy will help at this point. Imagine yourself at work in your lab late one night. On the bench before you is a collection of cultured nerve tissue that represents your life’s work. On a shelf above the bench is a large container of a liquid labeled “Site O’Clean Liquid Cleaner” and “EeeMune Corporation” and, in fine print, “Flammable.” You smell something burning and look up from your work to discover that the container has sprung a tiny leak and a small fire has begun to slowly creep across toward, you guessed it, the nerve tissue so important to you. You remain calm and reach out and remove your nearby fire extinguisher from its wall mount. You take only passing note of the labeling – “Kortikoid Fire Extinguisher” and “Indokrine Corporation.” But one phrase sticks in your mind and you pause to be certain – “Caution. Mildly Caustic. May damage nerve tissue.”

What do you do? You are alone and must act. So you spray the flames with as much cautious control as possible. And it works as the slowly burning flames die away. But, just as you breathe a sigh of relief, out of the corner of your eye you detect a flickering light as a tiny flame struggles back into existence. Then another and another. They are small but cannot be ignored so you spray again and a few drops strike your precious specimens. You hold back as much as possible but then you notice a flame has made it to one of your treasured dishes and is doing damage of its own. So you spray it and resignedly accept the damage. This pattern repeats as the night wears on. You cannot quench the flames permanently. You must do something though. Back and forth you act in some surreal balancing act. As the night wears on you grow tired. You react more slowly. More and more of your wonderful nerve tissue is lost. You have Parkinson’s Disease."