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Neuroscience

The brain's garbage men

Nature volume 446, pages 987–989 (2007)Cite this article

Microglial cells, the immune elements of the brain, are activated in disease or following injury. New findings indicate how these cells are switched on to remove damaged cells and cellular debris.

Brain function is generally considered as the activity of the neuronal network. So brain dysfunction or damage is thought to be caused by a disturbance to this network through the loss or malfunction of neurons. But the brain also contains another population of cells called glia, which in humans outnumber the neurons. In the disease context, a subtype of glial cells — the microglia — has attracted attention as sensors of any brain-damaging event. In response to injury, for example, microglia are activated, resulting in their interaction with immune cells, active migration to the site of injury, release of pro-inflammatory substances, and the engulfment of damaged cells and cellular parts by a process known as phagocytosis. On page 1091 of this issue, Koizumi et al.1 report that microglia express a particular kind of cell-membrane receptor — a subtype of the purinergic family — which mediates their phagocytic activity Footnote 1.

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Figure 1: Microglial activation.

Notes

  1. This article and the paper concerned1 were published online on 4 April 2007.

References

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  1. Helmut Kettenmann is at the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine, Robert-Roessle-Strasse 10, 13092 Berlin, Germany. kettenmann@mdc-berlin.de,

    Helmut Kettenmann

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  1. Helmut Kettenmann
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Kettenmann, H. The brain's garbage men. Nature 446, 987–989 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature05713

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