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  • Between Bedside and Bench
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Damage control in the nervous system: beware the immune system in spinal cord injury

Nature Medicine volume 15, pages 736–737 (2009)Cite this article

Bedside to Bench

Stroke and traumatic brain injury adversely affect the immune system. Immune suppression is well documented, denoted by apoptosis of splenocytes, impaired production of cytokines from leukocytes and leukopenia (low white blood cell count)1. This reduced immune capacity is accompanied by a prolonged stress response in which levels of catecholamines and cortisol are elevated in the tissue, the circulation or both2. Given these immune effects, it is perhaps not surprising that the leading cause of death after a stroke is infection2. Moreover, in concert with leukopenia induced by brain injury, activated immune cells accumulate in liver, lungs and heart and damage these organs3. The consistency of this effect on the organs has led investigators to call stroke a “multiorgan systemic disease” and to caution against using donated organs from brain-dead individuals for transplantation3,4.

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Figure 1: Injury to brain or spinal cord suppresses immune function while activating destructive inflammatory cascades.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Phillip Popovich and Dana McTigue are at the Center for Brain and Spinal Cord Repair, Columbus, Ohio, USA. phillip.popovich@osumc.edu and dana.mctigue@osumc.edu,

    Phillip Popovich & Dana McTigue

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Popovich, P., McTigue, D. Damage control in the nervous system: beware the immune system in spinal cord injury. Nat Med 15, 736–737 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nm0709-736

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