ABOVE: Newly discovered channels between the skull and the brain
NAHRENDORF LAB
Never-before-seen microscopic tunnels connect the bone marrow in the skull to the lining of the brain called the meninges, researchers reported Monday (August 27) in Nature Neuroscience. The finding could offer insights to how the brain responds to injury and disease.
“We always thought that immune cells from our arms and legs traveled via blood to damaged brain tissue. These findings suggest that immune cells may instead be taking a shortcut to rapidly arrive at areas of inflammation,” Francesca Bosetti, program director at the US National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, which funded the study, says in a statement. “Inflammation plays a critical role in many brain disorders and it is possible that the newly described channels may be important in a number of conditions.”
Matthias Nahrendorf, a molecular biologist at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital ...
