User:Jmitch2693/sandbox

Projects I am working on
Currently editing the page on microglia to be inclusive of modern research directions in psychotic disease.

Goals
Add sections for psychotic disease (schizophrenia) and affective disorders. Bring article from C-class to B-class.

To do
fix source on cardiovascular disease microglia are activated under inflammatory conditions

add:

Role of microglia in psychiatric disease
Chronic inflammation, and therefore activated microglia which are the brain's macrophage cells, often co-occurs with symptoms of psychosis. Quickly explain characteristics of psychiatric disease. Explain microglial function in them in general

Schizophrenia
Microglia "respond rapidly to even minor pathological changes in the brain"

Microglial hypothesis of schizophrenia
Activated microglial cells have been found in post-mortem brains of schizophrenic patients. synaptic pruning may occur in excess in the brains of people with schizophrenia [guardian article] senior author Oliver Howes. “We know that people with schizophrenia have loss of synapses, and that microglia play a role in synaptic pruning. If pruning goes to excess, or goes wrong, it could lead to major problems in brain function, and that may be what we’re seeing here.” [guardian article]

Evidence for elevated microglial activation in at-risk individuals "microglial activation is elevated in the brains of patients with schizophrenia, and provides what the researchers believe is the very first evidence of elevated microglial activity in people who are at risk of developing schizophrenia, and of an association between greater microglial activation and greater severity of symptoms" guardian article "Microglial activity is elevated in patients with schizophrenia and in persons with subclinical symptoms who are at ultra high risk of psychosis and is related to at-risk symptom severity. These findings suggest that neuroinflammation is linked to the risk of psychosis and related disorders, as well as the expression of subclinical symptoms."

Treatment
As microglia are responsible for neural pruning, researchers believe reducing the neuroinflammation in the high-risk stage of the disorder may alleviate (or hopefully prevent) its onset.

Psychosis
general

Depression
Deviation from microglial homeostasis, caused either by microglial activation during inflammatory conditions (e.g., infections, stress, stroke, or neurodegenerative diseases) or by microglial decline and senescence (e.g., during aging or chronic unpredictable stress), can lead to depression. sickness behavior

Anxiety
Psychosis??

HIV (dementia)

Research directions clinical evidence implicating microglial dysregulation in affective disorders is limited

is the microglial role in these conditions causal?

Wikipedia pages I refer to
I use several of the pages on Wikipedia to craft my writing.

Science
WikiProject Neuroscience

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders