Inflammation of nervous tissue, known as neuroinflammation, occurs in response to diverse cues such as infection, traumatic brain injury, toxic metabolites, and autoimmunity. Neuroinflammation is an important process for maintaining a healthy central nervous system (CNS) function after physical trauma and infections and is a highly regulated process. It also constitutes a significant component of many neurodegenerative (Gordon & Woodruff, 2017) and psychiatric disorders (Prinz & Priller, 2014). Neurodegenerative diseases are characterized by a progressive loss of neurons in several areas of the CNS. They are associated with cognitive, psychiatric, and motor deficits due to atrophy of the affected regions (Jeffrey L. Cummings & Pillai, 2017).
Neurodegenerative diseases constitute a significant burden globally, with dementia being a public health challenge in many developed countries. As aging is a strong risk factor for the most common neurodegenerative conditions, the global economic and social impact of these diseases on healthcare systems will likely continue to surge significantly in the coming decades due to increasingly aging populations and longer life spans (Ward, Zucca, Duyn, Crichton, & Zecca, 2014). It has been projected that by 2050, the population of individuals over 60 will rise to 2.1 billion worldwide (United Nations, 2015). This increased life expectancy will be accompanied by higher age-related diseases, with the elderly expected to spend most of their later years in ill health. A leading cause of disability in the elderly is dementia, which affects 44 million people globally and is expected to surpass 135 million by 2050 (Prince, 2014). In addition, over 36 million people worldwide are diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) or Parkinson’s disease (PD), the two most common neurodegenerative disorders.
The absence of effective disease-modifying treatments and the failure of most clinical trials for new therapies highlights the need to identify new therapies to halt disease progression. A significant challenge in developing treatment strategies for most progressive neurodegenerative diseases is their multi-factorial etiology and diverse disease course (M. T. Heneka, M. P. Kummer, & E. Latz, 2014; Obeso et al., 2010; Sulzer, 2007). Most articles in the literature describing immunotherapies for neurodegenerative diseases have typically focused on neurodegenerative auto-immune disorders such as multiple sclerosis (Liang et al., 2017). Until recently, little was known about immunotherapeutic interventions targeting aging-associated and other non-auto-immune neurodegenerative diseases.
Dr. Joanne Sadier, Associate Professor in Biomedical Sciences in the College of Health Sciences, summarized all recent immunotherapeutic strategies being developed to treat neuroinflammation-induced neurodegeneration, focusing on immunotherapies, in an article published in Frontiers in Neurology on 7 June 2020.
Dr. Joanne Sadier
Associate Professor of Genetics and Biomedical Sciences
College of Health Sciences