Immune cells gobble up healthy but idle brain cells

[xchrom]

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21428675.500-immune-cells-gobble-up-healthy-but-idle-brain-cells.html

USE it or lose it: a class of immune cell demolishes idle circuits and connections in the brain, even a healthy one. Understanding more about the process could help prevent the onset of degenerative brain diseases.

Until now, microglia have been dismissed as simple immune cells that do little more than protect brain cells from damage and tidy up in the aftermath of disease.

"The idea they can clean up brain debris has been well established in studies of brain disease," says Beth Stevens of Boston Children's Hospital. "But now, even without damage, we've found them to respond to subtle changes in synaptic function."

Stevens and her colleagues manipulated mice to make one eye more active than the other, creating a disparity in activity between the two neural circuits linking the eyes to the brain.


*** i'm sure my immune cells are quite Plump, in that case.

[2on2u]

1. Cerebral Defrag...... how telling. n/t

[bemildred]

3. Batch processing every night.

Somebody has got to clean up the mess

[FirstLight]

2. ...

oops... and this morning I hear a collective belch from my cerebrum!

[brewens]

4. I was scolded for saying "use it or lose it" discussing Alzheimer's years ago. I was

actually being an ass, sticking it to a boss that I knew was a dumbshit. I did believe that, but knew he was a guy that never bothered to read a book since high school, and would just sit and watch mindless tv every night. He thought I was childish for being into online wargaming. I'm spending my evenings carefully plotting strategy, he's in his lazyboy watching Survivor.

Let's just wait and see who can still wipe their own ass when they are 70 buddy! That's what I would have liked to have said to him. He's only a couple years older than I am.

[marybourg]

5. Would that it were true. Unfortunately

I think it's not. Everyone I've known who developed dementia has been of above average, mostly well above average, intelligence and achievement. And I'm now of the age where I know many.