Immune System Keeps Your Brain Tidy Too

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	Immune System Keeps Your Brain Tidy Too

MomLes

12-26-2007 12:36 PM

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<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/273c73c4-631a-4a25-9a70-53a4e69cb2a6/E68EECC9-42E0-4849-999F-EE0999B8366F/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://www.sciam.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=0AFDEC9C-C65A-4FC3-D4EF2F4656600281" href="http://www.sciam.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=0AFDEC9C-C65A-4FC3-D4EF2F4656600281" style="font-size: 11px;">www.sciam.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.sciam.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=0AFDEC9C-C65A-4FC3-D4EF2F4656600281"><BR /> <P><DIV>You might not realize it, but you’re born with more brain cells than you know what to do with. Or at least more brain-cell connections. As you grow older, through childhood and adolescence, you get rid of the connections that aren’t being used to store information or to tell you which tie goes with that jacket.</DIV>
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For years researchers have known about this cellular pruning. But they didn’t know how it worked. Now scientists from the Stanford University School of Medicine report that it’s the immune system that carries out this critical brain maintenance. In fact, the same protein that helps gets rid of uninvited bacteria also eliminates unused neural connections. The findings appeared in the December 14 issue of the journal Cell.</DIV>

This routine cellular maintenance is important for normal brain development. Mice that are missing this pruning protein wind up with disorganized, abnormal retinas. </P></blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/E68EECC9-42E0-4849-999F-EE0999B8366F/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content9.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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