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Immune memory in the brain

The brain’s resident immune cells retain a long-lasting memory of peripheral inflammation. This memory can influence the response to stroke and the progression of Alzheimer’s disease in mouse models.
  1. Alexi Nott

    1. Alexi Nott is in the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, University of California, San Diego, San Diego, California 92093, USA.

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  2. Christopher K. Glass

    1. Christopher K. Glass is in the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, and in the Department of Medicine, University of California, San Diego, San Diego, California 92093, USA.

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The body’s innate immune system provides an immediate and nonspecific defence against invading pathogens. The main innate immune cells in the brain, microglia, rarely encounter such infections, but they can respond to peripheral inflammation elsewhere in the body. One intriguing feature of peripheral innate immunity is a phenomenon called immune memory: the body’s innate immune system ‘remembers’ previous exposures to microbes, and augments its responses to reinfections accordingly1,2. Does it follow, then, that peripheral inflammation could elicit immune memory in microglia? In a paper in Nature, Wendeln et al.3 provide evidence for immune memory in microglia, and show that it can alter the progression of brain disorders in mice.

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Nature 556, 312-313 (2018)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-03800-6

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