Vessels that connect the immune system and the brain
“It changes entirely the way we perceive the neuroimmune interaction,” says Kipnis . “We always perceived it before as something esoteric that can’t be studied. But now we can ask mechanistic questions.” MS is an example of the immune system attacking the brain. The reasons for it are still not understood yet. Studying lymphatic vessels that link the brain to the immune system could make our understanding of it. The causes of Alzheimer’s disease is even more of a head scratcher. Indeed, Kipnis claims, “We believe that for every neurological disease that has an immune component to it, these vessels may play a major role.”
The findings occurred when Dr. Antoine Loveau, a researcher in Kipnis’ lab, put the membranes over the mouse brains on a slide. In the dural sinuses, he noticed linear patterns arrange of immune tcells. “I thought that these discoveries ended somewhere around the middle of the last century. But apparently they have not.” Extensive further research convinced him and a group of coauthors from some of Virginia’s most prestigious neuroscience institutes that the vessels are real, they carry white blood cells and they also exist in humans. The network, they report, “appears to start from both eyes and track above the olfactory bulb before aligning adjacent to the sinuses.”
