Research Discovery Could Affect Brain and Spinal Cord Injuries Treatment

Researchers at the University of Virginia have learned that what happens to the body after sustaining a major spinal injury could actually help doctors treat some serious medical conditions.

Researchers have singled out an immune system response that happens after someone sustains an injury to their central nervous system previously thought to be harmful.

Doctors say the reaction could not only help them treat brain and spinal injuries but also treat conditions like ALS, Multiple Sclerosis, and Alzheimer's.

"Because these diseases are chronic and the patients have them live really their whole life with the disability they get, if we can restore this function - really from the very beginning of the injury - then we can have a large impact on their quality of life, said one of the researchers, UVA medical student Jamie Walsh.

This discovery is the result of collaboration between researchers in the U.S. and Germany and at UVA's Center for Brain Immunology.

Major Discovery on Spinal Injury Reveals Unknown Immune Response: Finding Points to New Treatments for Trauma, Neurodegenerative Diseases

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., Jan. 21, 2015 In a discovery that could dramatically affect the treatment of brain and spinal cord injuries, researchers have identified a previously unknown, beneficial immune response that occurs after injury to the central nervous system. By harnessing this response, doctors may be able to develop new and better treatments for brain and spinal cord injuries, develop tools to predict how patients will respond to treatment, and better treat degenerative conditions such as Alzheimer's disease, multiple sclerosis, glaucoma and Lou Gehrig's disease.

Nervous System Injury

The newly discovered immune response occurs independently of the process that typically goads the immune system into action. In that process, the body identifies and attacks substances known as antigens, such as bacteria and viruses. What we have shown is that the injured central nervous system talks to the immune system in a language that hasn't been previously recognized in this context, said Jonathan Kipnis, PhD, professor in the Department of Neuroscience at the University of Virginia School of Medicine and director of the Center for Brain Immunology and Glia. It sends danger signals' and activates the immune system very rapidly. These danger signals cause immune cells to produce a molecule called interleukin 4, which happens to be indispensable for immune-mediated neuroprotection after CNS trauma.

Interleukin 4 helps protect the body's neurons (nerve cells) and promote their regeneration, whereas uncontrolled inflammation can destroy them. As such, understanding how the body responds to damage to the central nervous system (CNS) is critically important.

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Research Discovery Could Affect Brain and Spinal Cord Injuries Treatment