The Role of Microglia in the Puzzle of Neuro-inflammation in Autism
Regular readers of this and similar blogs will have noticed that the human body functions in quite irrational ways. We know why this is; we are the product of a very slow evolutionary process, rather than being a clean-sheet design like your smart phone or iPad. As a result, nothing is ever quite as simple as it seems and at times the cleverer you are, the less likely you are to find a medical therapy effective in humans. Such is the case with autism, inflammation and microglia. It might seem that you can track back inflammation in autism to its “root cause”, which could appear to be those immune cells in the brain, called microglia. We know they are “activated” in autism and we know that autism is typified by an “over-activated” immune response. Working with the assumption that autism is a brain dysfunction, you would assume that the effective therapy should be inside the so-called blood brain barrier (BBB). You would then just look for a potent drug that could “stabilize” ...