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Brain Inflammation and Its Connection to Severe Mental Illness
In the last article, we began discussing how brain inflammation is indicated in the formation of severe mental illnesses. Today we are going to explore two major mental illnesses, major depression, and schizophrenia, and how brain inflammation has become implicated in their formation.
What is Inflammation?
Inflammation is one of the body’s defense responses to injury or invasion by pathogens (viruses and bacteria). Inflammation has two basic types, acute and chronic.
Acute inflammation involves warmth, pain, and swelling activating leukocytes (white blood cells), increased blood supply to the area, and permeation of blood vessels to allow molecules readily leave blood vessels and enter the injured tissue.
With the inflammatory response, a complex molecular structure becomes activated including a specialized type of proteins that kill the pathogens called Cytokines. Cytokines are produced to regulate inflammation and to control the immune response. More about cytokines next week.
Chronic inflammation involves disease processes such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, and diabetes. Chronic brain inflammation is related to microglial cell activation that plays a protective function as cells play in the rest of the body.
