...Or, the Blood Brain Barrier, if you want to be technical about
it. More really exciting research has been performed on this phenomenon
of brain-body duality. The body is porous, it absorbs things easily
from the environment, as it is want to do. However, the brain is not so
susceptible. Ultrasound is being used by Columbia University
researchers to temporarily disrupt this gateway by shaking it loose to
let gene therapy sneak through.
New
understanding of this mechanism has been acquired by researchers from
the Swedish unviersity, Karolinska Institutet, and published in the
prestigious journal, Nature. Pericyte cells, not the same
as a tapeworm (which are a kind of parasite - different, but sounds
similar), regulate how astrocytes, another kind of cell, influence the
gateway of the BBB. They do this by influencing the capillary wall
opening, allowing water, and ions to pass through. Pericyte cells do
their own work apart from astrocytes by using transcytosis which
regulates the size of the capillary wall for other kind of chemicals,
too. How pericytes do the latter is not entirely certain at this
point. Some molecular mechanism controls this process of transcytosis
in an as yet to be discovered way.
One hint is likely to be found
in a certain cancer drug, Imatinib. It somehow closes the capillary
walls of the BBB. Studying this process could prevent destructive
influence as found in diseases like multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's,
ALS, and Parkinson's. This blogger wonders if Imatinib could be a
significant treatment in M.S., where the immune system seems to be
destroying parts of the neuron needed for good signal transmission.
Close up the capillaries, and the inflammatory signal from the neuron no
longer reaches white blood cells on patrol, they ease back, and the
cell is preserved. This is my theory about it anyways.
Control of
the BBB may afford very promising research in diseases of the brain.
One day, the BBB studies might benefit anyone in need of a better brain.
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