IUBio

Desmyelination (demyelination)

F. Frank LeFever flefever at ix.netcom.com
Thu Mar 25 22:24:51 EST 1999


In <7dc93i$ve2$1 at leech.urbi.com.br> "Moody" <moody at urbi.com.br> writes:

>
>I'd like to know more about desmyelination diaseses and symptoms. It's
>participation during phases of some diaseses like Chagas' diasese,
african
>trypanossomiases...
>
>Thanks a lot
>
>moody
>moody at urbi.com.br
>
>
Don't know an awful lot about it, but I'll throw this out, which may
help tie together otherwise disparate diseases: in the MS literature,
there is evidence that mast cells may play a role in demyelination, and
various kinds of neural insults can cause a proliferation of mast
cells--Nerve Growth Factor, induced by many kinds of insults, promotes
their survival if not their proliferation.  Evidence from Rae Silver's
lab, however, suggests migration from the periphery into the brain
rather than multiplication of mast cells already there; she was one of
my speakers at a conference I organized last spring ("Neuropsychology
and the Neuroimmune Dialogue") and I take her work very seriously).

What you find "in the fine print" in that MS literature, however, is
that it is a two-way street: mast cells may cause demyelination, but
demyelination may "cause" (or at least activate) mast cells, via
liberation of myelin basic protein.  I have tried to make something of
this in my speculations about neuroimmune mechanisms underlying delayed
and/or chronic symptoms following mild head injury.  Mayh be the basis
for some communality among otherwise disparate diseases...

F. Frank LeFever, Ph.D.
New York Neuroppsychology Group



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