Multiple sclerosis is remote controlled

(Medical Xpress)—Autoimmune diseases are triggered by immune cells that attack the body's own tissue. In multiple sclerosis (MS) immune cells succeed in invading nervous tissue and sparking off a destructive inflammation there which can be accompanied by neurological deficits such as paralysis and somatosensory defects. A healthy brain is practically free from immune cells, because the nervous system is separated from the rest of the body via specialized blood vessels that prevent immune cells from entering it from the blood. Up to now it has been unclear how in MS immune cells can overcome this barrier and seemingly pass unhindered into the brain tissue. A research team, initially at the Max Planck Institute for Neurobiology in Martinsried, and later at the University of Göttingen, could now show that these disease-causing immune cells are programmed in the lung to be more motile and to efficiently break through blood vessel barriers.

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