Journal Club Recap: May 31, 2019

May 31, 2019: At Journal Club, our experts sat down to discuss a paper on cerebrospinal fluid cytokines in aging, multiple sclerosis, and dementia.

Hu et al 2019 - CSF Cytokines in Aging, Multiple Sclerosis, and Dementia

Cytokines are compounds released by cells of the immune system that have impacts on other cells in the body. They have previously been studied in relation to aging and this research group set out to create a map of the standard changes in cytokine levels as you age. They then used this map to study cytokine levels in neurodegenerative diseases such as MS. Their research demonstrated an increase in cytokine levels in MS patients and that age impacted all cytokine levels in healthy patients. Further research needs to be done with a larger sample of MS patients to determine the significance of these findings.