Our brain has been a mystery for millennia as philosophers and researchers attempted to understand how we remember. We now understand that memory occurs in the brain with changes in the electrical properties of nerve cells and changes in the network interactions of those nerves located in various brain regions. Different areas of the brain remember different types of memories. Some areas remember episodes. Some remember emotions. Some remember procedures like how to play a piano. Recent research also indicates that the immune system places a role in our ability to build memories.
As more and more studies indicate that inflammation affects brain function in not only neurodegenerative diseases, but psychiatric conditions like depression, the immune system is seen as a major player. A recent study in the Journal of Neuroinflammation highlighted that changes in microglia, brain immune cells, greatly affected rats’ ability to learn new tasks.
After wiping out the microglia cells from the rat brains, they repopulated the cells and found that the rats memory abilities improved 25-50%. This was somewhat unexpected. Now they are trying to understand what made these microglia different during this repopulation process. Maybe the key to the effects on memory could be found there.
For a functional MD like myself, seeking to help patients live healthier more abundant lives, I will wait expectantly for more tools to improve my patients’ brain health. As I wait, I will work to help my patients’ immune system be as healthy and balanced as possible with the expectation that their brains will benefit from a health immune system.
Original Article:
Simone N. De Luca, Alita Soch, Luba Sominsky, Thai-Xinh Nguyen, Abdulhameed Bosakhar, Sarah J. Spencer. Glial remodeling enhances short-term memory performance in Wistar rats. Journal of Neuroinflammation, 2020; 17 (1) DOI: 10.1186/s12974-020-1729-4
Thanks to Science Daily:
RMIT University. “How the brain’s immune system could be harnessed to improve memory.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 11 February 2020. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/02/200211103731.htm>.
Sanctuary Functional Medicine, under the direction of Dr Eric Potter, IFMCP MD, provides functional medicine services to Nashville, Middle Tennessee and beyond. We frequently treat patients from Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Ohio, Indiana, and more... offering the hope of healthier more abundant lives to those with chronic illness.
