Head injury causes immune system to attack brain, new study finds
To date, there are no effective treatments to prevent or reverse the damage sustained after brain injury. The researchers were testing the theory that blows to the head cause brain damage, in part, because of the breakdown of the blood-brain barrier, allowing the immune cells in the blood to come into contact with brain cells and destroy them. They hypothesized that mice missing a vital immune component would have less brain damage from trauma, and that a treatment which blocks a component of the immune system would prevent damage. …