Publication highlights

Researchers at the Francis Crick Institute, the UK Dementia Research Institute at UCL and the VIB-KU Leuven Center for Brain & Disease Research have revealed how communication between support cells in the brain disrupts signals between nerve cells in mice with Alzheimer’s disease, the main cause of dementia. Using spatial transcriptomics, the researchers found that microglia built up near plaques all across the mouse brain, but astrocytes only accumulated next to plaques in certain regions, such as the hippocampus. They identified signals showing that microglia and astrocytes were talking together. The more microglia there were around a plaque, the more toxic to neurons the astrocytes became, leading to reduced brain activity. The next step for the researchers is to investigate the proteins involved in this cell cross-talk and see if they can be blocked, shutting down this specific message between astrocytes and microglia.