Interesting Article on Immune System and Psychiatric Illnesses

[Guest guest]

Utah scientist makes breakthrough in mental illness research

By Stagg

SALT LAKE CITY -- It is heartbreaking to see someone you love suffer from mental

illness. Now a famous Utah scientist says he's made a big breakthrough in the

research to find a cure.

Doctors have traditionally treated mental illness with drugs to alter the

brain's chemistry, but the University of Utah's Nobel Prize-winning geneticist

Dr. Capecchi tried a new approach on a lab mouse. He treated the animal

for the illness the same way you would many other illnesses -- by treating its

immune system.

Capecchi says compulsive behavior doesn't just affect people. In fact, he had a

lab mouse who was suffering from the condition trichotillomania, where one pulls

their own hair out. Scientists say it was the mouse that led to the

ground-breaking discovery as they found a way to cure him.

" There's a direct correlation, in essence, between the immune system and

behavior, " Capecchi says.

He says scientists have known for years that there is a connection between

behavior and the immune system, but they didn't quite understand it. Now he and

his team have discovered it all has to do with a tiny cell called microglia.

Microglia were believed to be " scavenger cells " that would clean up damage in

the brain, but Capecchi says the cells are much more powerful than they were

letting on.

" What we're saying is microglia are much more sophisticated and are actually

controlling behavior, and they have to do it by interacting the nerve cells in

your brain, " Capecchi says.

They found people and animals afflicted with behavior disorders have deformed

microglia cells. So, instead of treating mental illness the way doctors

traditionally have -- with medication to alter brain chemistry -- they tried a

new approach by treating the immune system.

The researchers used a procedure on the mouse that's commonly practiced on

cancer patients -- a bone marrow transplant.

" That cured the disease permanently, " Capecchi says. " All the hair grew back,

all the lesions were healed, and the mouse no longer removes the body hair. "

Capecchi says this new discovery could lead to cures for mental disorders from

autism to schizophrenia.

" The book is just opened, and so there are many, many possibilities; and

hopefully not only will we pursue it, but also hopefully it will interest other

researchers, other investigators, to pursue similar experiments, " Capecchi says.

What are... microglia?

Microglia are immune system cells that originate in bone marrow and migrate from

blood to the brain acting as the first and main form of active immune defense in

the central nervous system (CNS) defending the brain and spinal cord, constantly

excavating the CNS and attacking and engulfing infectious agents.

[Guest guest]

This really is very interesting, especially in that it confirms the

approach to autism: fix the immune system. Im curious if microglia are something

that can be tested for in the Immune Panel that Dr. G orders? Also, it appears

that a specific mutated gene is responsible (at least in this study of

trichotillomania) for creating deficiency in microglia, which in turn creates

the behavior. In the study, the behavior goes away when given a bone marrow

transplant (i.e. by adding microglia cells).

Here is the full study:

http://www.cell.com/fulltext/S0092-8674%2810%2900374-0#Summary

In my non-medical mind, this is certainly proof that stem-cell transplants may

be the future of treating psychiatric disorders.