Our organs are kind of hard to miss. But researchers from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, publishing their findings in Nature, say they’ve found what amounts to a new immune organ inside our skulls.
The researchers discovered lymph node-like structures in the bone marrow of mice skulls that seem to act as specialized immune safe spaces for the brain. The research builds on earlier findings that showed tiny channels connecting the brain, its protective membranes, and the skull.
Those channels let material from the brain reach the skull’s marrow. From there, the researchers found structures resembling the germinal centers usually found in lymph nodes, where immune cells multiply and prepare antibodies for battle against invaders.
What Happens When You Need Your Skull Immune System?
The researchers then tested what happens in the brain when it actually needs to use these little warriors. In mice with glioblastoma, disrupting the immune structures caused tumors to grow faster and reduced survival. When they delivered immune-boosting proteins through a gel applied under the scalp, the skull’s immune centers created stronger antitumor responses, and the mice lived longer.
This could one day lead to the development of, let’s say, a brain cancer treatment where a tumor is dealt with via hydrogel applied under the scalp instead of a risky brain surgery. Of course, for now, this is all just research involving mice. But if the science holds up and can be scaled up to humans, we may have a new way to treat brain cancer, and maybe even neurological diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
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