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Active HHV-6 Infection of Cerebellar Purkinje Cells in Mood Disorders

xcell

Always looking for new knowledge and options!
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Germany
Active HHV-6 Infection of Cerebellar Purkinje Cells in Mood Disorders

According to the scientists, this refutes the assumption that viruses frequently found in humans, which "slumber" undetected in organs and tissues, are never responsible for a disease. "Studies, like our current one, prove that this thinking is wrong," says Prusty. Another recent study shows that there is a connection between Alzheimer's disease and human herpes viruses.
Translated with http://www.DeepL.com/Translator
https://www.uni-wuerzburg.de/aktuel...le/news/ueberraschender-fund-in-nervenzellen/

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2018.01955/full
Early-life infections and associated neuroinflammation is incriminated in the pathogenesis of various mood disorders. Infection with human roseoloviruses, HHV-6A and HHV-6B, allows viral latency in the central nervous system and other tissues, which can later be activated causing cognitive and behavioral disturbances. Hence, this study was designed to evaluate possible association of HHV-6A and HHV-6B activation with three different groups of psychiatric patients. DNA qPCR, immunofluorescence and FISH studies were carried out in post-mortem posterior cerebellum from 50 cases each of bipolar disorder (BPD), schizophrenia, 15 major depressive disorder (MDD) and 50 appropriate control samples obtained from two well-known brain collections (Stanley Medical Research Institute). HHV-6A and HHV-6B late proteins (indicating active infection) and viral DNA were detected more frequently (p < 0.001 for each virus) in human cerebellum in MDD and BPD relative to controls. These roseolovirus proteins and DNA were found less frequently in schizophrenia cases. Active HHV-6A and HHV-6B infection in cerebellar Purkinje cells were detected frequently in BPD and MDD cases. Furthermore, we found a significant association of HHV-6A infection with reduced Purkinje cell size, suggesting virus-mediated abnormal Purkinje cell function in these disorders. Finally, gene expression analysis of cerebellar tissue revealed changes in pathways reflecting an inflammatory response possibly to HHV-6A infection. Our results provide molecular evidence to support a role for active HHV-6A and HHV-6B infection in BPD and MDD.
 

Gemini

Senior Member
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1,176
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East Coast USA
Active HHV-6 Infection of Cerebellar Purkinje Cells in Mood Disorders
Dharam Ablashi has studied HHV-6 in ME/CFS for decades; nice to see this impressive international collaboration researching HHV-6 in tissue from UK collections.

Anthony Komaroff is mentioned at the end of the paper as having reviewed and commented on it.

A section on co-infections mentions Chronic Fatigue Syndrome:

"Other studies have also demonstrated co-operation between the Chlamydia family of bacteria and several HHVs; with co-infection implicated in chronic fatigue syndrome and multiple sclerosis (Munger et al., 2003; Nicolson et al., 2003). "

One conclusion: Gene expression studies suggest "immune response to infection" may contribute to disease pathophysiology.

@xcell, thanks for posting this interesting study. Many new insights from this work.

There's a 2010 Ablashi/Komaroff "free" review article covering HHV-6 in CNS diseases including ME/CFS:
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4758195
 

Wolfcub

Senior Member
Messages
7,089
Location
SW UK
It's strange you should mention this @xcell
For a while I have been wondering about a possible link (for myself) with Varicella Zoster. The one reason I kind of discounted it was because I had no rash -whereas the two times before when I have had Shingles (2000 and 2001) I got a rash each time, though no post-herpetic pain to follow.
But the more I thought about it the more I started to wonder about that so-called "dormant" VZ as some of my symptoms were ever so slightly similar to when I had shingles. I am now wondering if a constant nagging pain over my eye isn't some form of post-herpetic pain...
My instinct was always telling me some kind of chronic brain inflammation
I don't know, in my case for sure though.
But I did find this too:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19520522