IS YOUR BRAIN ON FIRE?
“I’ve always been intrigued by inflammation,” says Linda Van Eldik, PhD, director of the Sanders-Brown Center on Aging and the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. She says chronic inflammation may be one of the primary drivers of Alzheimer’s. Dr. Van Eldik studies microglia, immune cells that patrol the brain by the tens of billions.
Normally they work like trash trucks, gobbling up little scraps of amyloid protein waste before it can cause trouble. But when overwhelmed by inflammation, microglia pump out a torrent of inflammatory chemicals called cytokines. “Cytokines damage nerve cells [neurons] and synapses, reducing communication between cells,” she explains.
It’s a vicious cycle. When cells are damaged by cytokines, microglia “start producing more inflammation, you get more damage, then you get more inflammation,” Van Eldik says.
This may explain why aging, head injuries, stroke and other brain insults increase risk for Alzheimer’s and other dementias, she says.