How Repair-or-Dispose Decisions Under Stress Can Initiate Disease Progression

• DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2020.101701
• Publication Date: 2020-10-22T02:57:58Z
• Authors: Andreas Nold; Danylo Batulin; Katharina Birkner; Stefan Bittner; Tatjana Tchumatch...
• Keywords: Crosstalk; Stressor; Dispose pattern

Glia, the helper cells of brain, are essential in maintaining neural resilience across time and varying challenges: By reacting to changes neuronal health glia carefully balance repair or disposal injured neurons. Malfunction these interactions is implicated many neurodegenerative diseases. We present a reductionist model that mimics repair-or-dispose decisions generate hypothesis for cause disease onset. The assumes four tissue states: healthy challenged tissue, primed at risk acute damage propagation, chronic neurodegeneration. discuss analogies progression stages observed most common conditions experimental observations cellular signaling pathways glia-neuron crosstalk. suggests onset neurodegeneration can result as compromise between two conflicting goals: short-term stressors versus long-term prevention damage.