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MICROGLIA

Norepinephrine as a modulator of microglial dynamics

Nature Neuroscience volume 22, pages 1745–1746 (2019)Cite this article

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Two new studies demonstrate the importance of awake imaging to investigate microglia–neuron interactions. These studies show that microglial dynamics are influenced by neuronal activity, and they provide evidence that norepinergic signaling plays an important role in this effect.

Microglia are highly motile, phagocytic, resident immune cells of the brain. In the normal physiological condition, they are highly ramified1; however, during disease or infection they become activated with shorter, thick processes2. Moreover, microglia are not only involved in the inflammation process but also have a continuous role in synaptic pruning and plasticity3,4. In this issue of Nature Neuroscience, Stowell et al.5 and Liu et al.6 use in vivo two-photon laser microscopy to show that microglia dynamics differ between awake and anesthetized mice and to highlight the roles of norepinephrine and β2-adrenergic receptors (β2-AR) in these states.

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Fig. 1: Schematic illustration of changes of microglial dynamics in awake and anesthetized mice.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by SFB 1089‚ Synaptic Micronetworks in Health and Disease. Thanks to R. McManus for proofreading the article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurodegenerative Disease and Geriatric Psychiatry, University of Bonn Medical Center, Bonn, Germany

    Dilek Mercan & Michael T. Heneka

  2. German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE), Bonn, Germany

    Michael T. Heneka

  3. Department of Infectious Diseases and Immunology, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA, USA

    Michael T. Heneka

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  1. Dilek Mercan
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  2. Michael T. Heneka
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Correspondence to Michael T. Heneka.

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Mercan, D., Heneka, M.T. Norepinephrine as a modulator of microglial dynamics. Nat Neurosci 22, 1745–1746 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-019-0526-9

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