Head Trauma Kills Brain Cells From Weakened Immune System

Head trauma can dramatically affect the body even after time "heals" physical wounds. Recent findings published in the journal Acta Neuropathological Communications reveal that the body's immune system actually worsens following a head injury. Furthermore, researchers at Texas A&M found that more brain cells die following this incident.

For the study, researchers examined 32 mice in experiments and found that immune systems can attack the brain following the breakdown of the blood-brain barrier. By making the immune system control part of the treatment regiment, they found that the brain lesions in the mice appeared smaller.

Researchers hypothesized that mice missing the key component CD74 would suffer little to no brain damage from trauma. Yet CD74 breaks down into smaller components as it binds to immune response proteins that activated a specific type of immune cells known as the T-Cells, which work to rid the body of damaged tissue.

As they compared brain lesion sizes CD74 deficient and normal mice who were given a saline injection, researchers found that CD74 deficient mice had smaller lesions. They gave mice that received trauma CAP treatment that helped to control T-cells.

Researchers found that treated mice showed smaller lesions compared to those who received saline control. Furthermore, they found that lesion sizes were also similar to those of mice that were deficient in CD74.

"While our results are consistent with this hypothesis, the consequences of CAP therapy resulting in neuroprotection require further examination to fully elucidate the precise mechanisms involved," researchers concluded.