摘要
Multiple sclerosis(MS)is an inflammatory neurodegenerative disease of the central nervous system(CNS).Pathological characteristics of the disease include activation of CNS-intrinsic immune cells,such as microglia and astrocytes,and loss of neuronal connections,myelin and blood-brain barrier(BBB)integrity as well as peripheral immune cell infiltration into the brain.MS has long been considered a predominantly immunological disease,which has led to the development of essentially only immune-directed medications.Within this traditional“outside-in”MS hypothesis,a dysregulation of the peripheral immune system causes immune cell infiltration into the CNS,leading to autoreactivity against myelin sheath components and secondary BBB dysfunction.However,recent findings indicate that overactivation of microglia and astrocytes represents an important first step in MS pathology,as appears to be the case for other neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease(AD)and Parkinson’s disease(PD).
基金
This work was supported by Kelders Beheer Ltd.The authors declare no conflict of interest relating to this work.
