currentsinbiology:This is pretty huge!Missing link found between brain, immune system – with major d

currentsinbiology:This is pretty huge!Missing link found between brain, immune system – with major disease implicationsVessels directly connecting brain, lymphatic system exist despite decades of doctrine that they don’tFinding may have substantial implications for major neurological diseases Game-changing discovery opens new areas of research, transforms existing onesMajor gap in understanding of the human body revealed‘They’ll have to change the textbooks’In a stunning discovery that overturns decades of textbook teaching, researchers at the University of Virginia School of Medicine have determined that the brain is directly connected to the immune system by vessels previously thought not to exist. That such vessels could have escaped detection when the lymphatic system has been so thoroughly mapped throughout the body is surprising on its own, but the true significance of the discovery lies in the effects it could have on the study and treatment of neurological diseases ranging from autism to Alzheimer’s disease to multiple sclerosis“We believe that for every neurological disease that has an immune component to it, these vessels may play a major role,” Kipnis said. “Hard to imagine that these vessels would not be involved in a [neurological] disease with an immune component.”Caption: Maps of the lymphatic system: old (left) and updated to reflect UVA’s discovery. Credit: University of Virginia Health SystemWOWOWOWOWOW… this changes everything. Anytime you’ve read an article talk vaguely of “brain inflammation”, this is relevant.“The unexpected presence of the lymphatic vessels raises a tremendous number of questions that now need answers, both about the workings of the brain and the diseases that plague it. For example, take Alzheimer’s disease. “In Alzheimer’s, there are accumulations of big protein chunks in the brain,” Kipnis said. “We think they may be accumulating in the brain because they’re not being efficiently removed by these vessels.” He noted that the vessels look different with age, so the role they play in aging is another avenue to explore. And there’s an enormous array of other neurological diseases, from autism to multiple sclerosis, that must be reconsidered in light of the presence of something science insisted did not exist.”Also, this Kipnis dude must be all right to name drop so many people beneath him in the press release. -- source link

More pics about