Scientists were lead to the conclusion that the immune system has a direct correlation to behavior with the discovery of a lab mouse suffering from trichotillomania, a condition where one pulls their own hair out, was cured by a bone marrow transplant. Traditionally these kinds of conditions were treated with drugs to alter the chemistry of the brain.
University of Utah’s Nobel Prize-winning geneticist Dr. Mario Capecchi tried a new approach on a lab mouse by treating it with a bone marrow transplant normally used on cancer patients. Dr. Capecche’s team found that people and animals afflicted with behavior disorders have deformed microglia cells. So, instead of treating mental illness the way doctors traditionally have — with medication to alter brain chemistry — they tried a new approach by treating the immune system.
“Microglia , immune cells originating from adult stem cells in the bone marrow and migrate from the blood into the brain, were believed to be “scavenger cells” that would clean up damage in the brain, but are now believed that microglia are much more sophisticated and are actually controlling behavior and they do it by interacting with the nerve cells in your brain,” Capecchi says.
This discovery could offer hope to parents of children afflicted with behaviour disorders such as autism.
Blood cells perform some of the body’s most critical functions. Red blood cells usher oxygen from the lungs to all other destinations in the body. White blood cells, on the other hand, provide a solid line of defense against viruses and disease. Many of these blood cells are produced in bone marrow, the soft tissue located inside large, hollow bones.