New research has shown how normally helpful brain cells can turn rogue and kill off other brain cells following injury or disease.Astrocytes have long been implicated in the pathology of a range of human neurodegenerative diseases or injuries including Alzheimer's, Huntington’s Parkinson’s disease, brain trauma and spinal cord injury.
New research has shown how normally helpful brain cells can turn rogue and kill off other brain cells following injury or disease.Astrocytes have long been implicated in the pathology of a range of human neurodegenerative diseases or injuries including Alzheimer's, Huntington’s Parkinson’s disease, brain trauma and spinal cord injury.
But how they are produced and what their roles in disease may be, has been as yet unknown. This paper provides an understanding of the mechanism involved and for the first time provides hope that a lot of these diseases may in fact be treatable.
The study, published recently in Nature and led by researchers at The University of Melbourne and Stanford University, provides deeper understanding of the functions of injured or diseased astrocytes found in the Central Nervous System (CNS) following acute injury and chronic neurodegenerative disease.
Read more at University of Melbourne
Image Credits: University of Melbourne
