Aerowallah
Senior Member
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“There’s a unique subpopulation of microglia in the white matter called axon tract microglia,” Monje says. These have a specific genetic signature, she continues, and “are exquisitely sensitive to a wide range of insults,” like inflammatory or toxic stimuli.
In response to these stimuli, microglia can become perpetually reactive. One consequence is that they can begin eating away at needed neurons or other brain cells, which further disrupts the brain’s homeostasis. In the case of Covid-19, the scientists found that this reactivity persisted even at seven weeks after infection.
To figure out what exactly caused the microglia to become reactive, the researchers looked for the cytokines that had reached elevated levels. Specifically, Anthony Fernandez Castaneda, a postdoctoral researcher in Monje’s laboratory and a study coauthor, found CCL11—a factor that can decrease the generation of new neurons and impair learning or memory. “The elevated CCL11 result was very interesting, because it could potentially explain why some Covid survivors experience cognitive symptoms,” he says.
[COVID] infected mice had lost approximately one-third of their mature oligodendrocytes, and had a statistically significant drop in myelination compared to mice in a control group.
Thanks for the summary. Would black currant oil be more or less effective than foods containing black currant?
There’s a unique subpopulation of microglia in the white matter called axon tract microglia,” Monje says. These have a specific genetic signature, she continues, and “are exquisitely sensitive to a wide range of insults,” like inflammatory or toxic stimuli.
In response to these stimuli, microglia can become perpetually reactive.
I can't think of a better explanation for the wide variety and the different degrees of severity of symptoms, both in Long Covid and in ME/CFS, than the brain.
extreme environmental reactions that don't always correlate to immunological testing,
What I highlighted in bold print, sounds just like what ME/CFS researcher Jarred Younger is saying what he thinks the cause of ME/CFS is.
That it's "primed" microglia, causing brain inflammation, making the brain highly sensitive to many different stimulus, that otherwise, would be harmless and not cause symptoms. "Primed" microglia are very sensitive and "reactive".
However, this present research on brain fog does not seem involve immune priming; that does not appear to be the mechanism of microglial extra sensitivity (nothing is said about priming in the study).
Rather the published study talks about the "exquisitely sensitive" microglia that inhabit the white matter of the brain. So this subset of white matter microglia appears to be naturally highly sensitive to triggering into an inflammatory state.
I just read some of the study. It sounds like it's immune system activation from Covid 19 is what causes the "Reactive microglia". What is causing the "Reactive microglia" in that study, if not immune system stimulation from Covid 19?
“There’s a unique subpopulation of microglia in the white matter called axon tract microglia,” Monje says. These have a specific genetic signature, she continues, and “are exquisitely sensitive to a wide range of insults,” like inflammatory or toxic stimuli.
Examining the mouse hippocampus following mild respiratory SARS-CoV-2 infection, we found robustly increased microglial reactivity in hippocampal white matter at 7-days post-infection (Figure 4A–B) that persists until at least 7-weeks post-infection
That's interesting. I had no idea - just looked up and apparently the ban was lifted quite recently so black currant imports are legal in the USA again.
The fruit itself I don't think was ever banned.
It seems that in brain fog, specialized microglia in the white matter may have become permanently switched on:
BTW, potatoes and tomatoes make my ME symptoms worse, so I'm definitely not willing to experiment with chewing on tomato plants.