Mouse brain top viewWIKIMEDIA, DATABASE CENTER FOR LIFE SCIENCEThe mammalian brain, long thought to lack a lymphatic system, contains canonical lymphatic vessels that bear the molecular markers of the structures that carry fluid and immune cells from the tissues to the lymph nodes elsewhere in the body, according to a mouse study published today (June 1) in Nature.
“For many years, we said ‘There’s no lymphatic drainage from the brain,’” said Jon Laman, an immunologist at Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, who was not involved in the work, “but this, in a way, is a breakthrough study because it shows the presence and functionality of a lymphatic vessel in the dura mater.” Of the meninges, the three membranes surrounding the brain, the dura mater is the one closest to the skull.
“These structures are bona fide vessels—they express all the same markers as lymphatic vessels in every other tissue, and they drain the CSF, the cerebrospinal fluid, from the brain and the spinal cord into the deep cervical lymph nodes,” said Jonathan Kipnis of the University of Virginia School of ...
