With all the papers we have been discussing, it seems that the worst thing to have after a stroke is a good adaptive immune system. Of course, I don't really want SCID (Severe Combined Immune Deficiency- A congenital disease where the person lacks the ability to produce functioning T and B cells), but all this research is enticing!
After discussing on Monday the effects of T and B cells on post-stroke infarction size, I decided to look for more research on stroke and immunosuppression. This article is very interesting:
"Immunosuppression promotes endogenous neural stem and progenitor cell migration and tissue regeneration after ischemic injury" Anna Erlandsson, et al. Experimental Neurology: 2010.
The article first describes how recent work has shown that growth factor infusion post stroke can increase repair in the brain by activating endogenous neural precursor cells that will aid in new tissue formation and functional recovery. This paper investigated whether or not immunosuppression would mirror the effects of growth factor infusion. They used both a drug induced (Cyclosporine A) immunosuppressed model and a SCID model (in mice). They found that immunodeficiency (drug induced and SCID) had near the exact same effect as the growth factors. However, there was a physical difference. The immunodeficient mice had their cortical cavity formed with tissue containing glial cells and subependyma derived neural stem and progenitor cells, but NO new neurons. The growth factor model had the stem cells, progenitor cells, AND new neurons. Surprisingly, both the growth factor treated and immunodeficient mice displayed the same functional behavioral recovery despite the lack of neurons. (Neural precursor cells migrate from lateral ventricle lining)
This is exciting search, and could have powerful clinical manifestations. I invite anyone that is interested to take a look at the article and the figures. There are some very good pictures of the brain infarct sizes and clear immunocytochemistry pictures.
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