In the case of atherosclerosis, blood vessels and brain exchange nerve signals with each other. This was reported by an international team in the "Nature" journal. Tissue samples of mice and humans therefore showed that lymph node structures form on the outer wall of the outer wall of the blood vessels, called "arterial tertiary lymph organs" (atlo). According to the authors, they sit exactly where the plaques typical of the disease are deposited and are networked with the nervous system. Atlos transmit information to the brain and receive signals. The larger the clumps in the bloodstream, the more nerve fibers the scientists were able to detect on the outer wall.
Around every second death in Western industrialized countries is due to atherosclerosis. The resulting inflammatory plaques narrow the vessels and thus lead, for example, to heart attacks or strokes. Until now, it was assumed that the nervous system was not involved in the development of atherosclerosis because the wall of the blood vessels physically separates the plaques from the neurons. The new study contradicts this. "This is a completely new perspective that paves the way for previously unknown therapies," says Giuseppe Lembo of the University of Rome, who was involved in the study, in a press release. In addition to scientists from Italy, laboratories in England, China and Germany also participated.
In order to check whether the plaques actually work through the vessel wall, the Italian group covered the connections from the brain to the arterial outer wall for mice. Eight months later, atherosclerosis was less pronounced by these rodents than with the control animals. According to the researchers, the brain increases the nerve tracts to the outer wall of the blood vessels when it receives information about inflamed narrow places. The messenger noradrenaline is increasingly released, which promotes the growth of the plaques.
»Atherosclerosis is more than just a plaque; Rather, it is about the inflammation of the artery itself, also on the outside, «says the molecular doctor Sarajo Mohahant, who is also involved in the study. However, in the publication, the scientists could not finally clarify which material transports the information from the artery wall. The American biologists Courtney Clyburn and Susan Birren from the universities of Portland and Waltham write in a comment on the study that the abundance of information gained will enable scientists to identify the factors in the future.
So far there is no medication that is reducing the deposits. The discovery of the "Arteries brain circuit" gives hope for a possible healing of the vascular disease. For Giuseppe Lembo, the research results for the development of non -pharmaceutical treatment options speak: "The hypothesis on which work should now be worked on is the possibility of working on the nerve endings with bioelectronic devices," he says. However, his colleague Mohahant brakes a premature euphoria: "In the long term, we hope that atherosclerosis can finally be treated causally," he explains, "but that can still take time."
