When we age our whole body gradually deteriorates. This includes our brains, where our personality, memories and personal values reside. It is therefore understandable that dementia and memory loss are some of the most devastating hallmarks of ageing, for the elderly, their families, and the healthcare system. This is why researchers want to find ways to rejuvenate the brain and therefore maintain the young mind and cognition in old age.
Throughout our life, immune cells that circulate in the blood help maintain our bodies, yet the brain, structurally secluded from the circulation by an impermeable blood-brain barrier, was for years considered to be an organ which ideally operates autonomously.
The brain’s choroid plexus under immunofluorescence microscopy.Kuti Baruch and Aleksandra Deczkowska, Author provided
However, work by our group has focused on a part of the brain called the choroid plexus. This tissue is found in the ventricles of the brain, where cerebrospinal fluid is produced, and acts as a unique interface between the blood and the brain: on one side it is exposed to signals from the brain and on its other side to the rest of the body and the circulation.
