«This is not, in my mind, an approach to take during chronic infection, because once infection has been established, the mechanisms of
immune activation become much more complicated,» observes Martin Markowitz, staff investigator at the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center in New York City.
Not exact matches
«While transient disruption of this pathway may have therapeutic benefit because it temporarily «revs up» the
immune response, permanent loss of PD - 1 signals seems to result in a «flame out» where T cells can't sustain higher level
activation and
become more dysfunctional,» Wherry says.
So you can see a very clear mechanism whereby people with chronic
immune activation can
become depressed.»
Initially the innate
immune system protects the tissue against these triggers, but prolonged
activation becomes self - perpetuating, causing brain cell death to occur.
Without such
activation by recognition of infection, Janeway suggested that the adaptive
immune system ignored or even
became tolerant to the antigens presented by the «quiescent» DC.
Follow - up studies will look more closely at what length of time
immune activation starts to
become a problem and what mechanisms are responsible for both the improvement and eventual worsening of Alzheimer's pathology.
The detrimental effects of chronic
immune activation, which is the result of HIV infection, have
become increasingly clear.