Like a stern bodyguard for the central nervous system, the blood-brain barrier keeps out anything that could lead to disease and dangerous inflammation—at least when all is functioning normally.
That may not be the case in people with schizophrenia and other mental disorders, suggest new findings from a team led by researchers from the School of Veterinary Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). In these individuals, a more permissive barrier appears to allow the immune system to get improperly involved in the central nervous system, the researchers showed. The inflammation that arises likely contributes to the clinical manifestations of neuropsychiatric conditions.
Read more about how Jorge Alvarez, Stewart Anderson and their team used patient-derived stem cells and mouse models to examine the role of immune cells in schizophrenia in Penn Today.