Alzheimer's: Immune system alterations in mouse brain reduces two characteristic features of disease
Monday, January 11, 2010 - 23:14
in Health & Medicine
Using laboratory mice that had been bred to have brain changes similar to Alzheimer's disease, scientists were able to reduce two characteristic features of the disease by modifying the mice's immune systems with a special peptide related to the myelin sheath that insulates nerve cells and nerve fibers. As a result, anti-inflammatory cells were recruited from the blood into the brain, dampening the local inflammatory response.