Peripheral inflammation and demyelinating diseases

Abstract

In the last decades, several neurodegenerative diseases have shown to be exacerbated by systemic inflammatory processes. There is a wide range of literature that demonstrates a clear but complex relationship between the central nervous system (CNS) and the immunological system, both under naïve or pathological conditions. In diseased brains, peripheral inflammation can transform ?primed? microglia into an ?active? state, which can trigger stronger pathological responses. Demyelinating diseases are a group of neurodegenerative diseases characterized by inflammatory lesions associated with demyelination, which in turn induces axonal damage, neurodegeneration and progressive loss of function. Among them, the most important are Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and neuromyelitis optica (NMO). In the present review, we will analyze the effect of specific peripheral inflammatory stimuli in the progression of demyelinating diseases and their animal models. In most cases, an exacerbating role for peripheral immune stimuli was observed.