reverett123

Here's a pretty good explanation-

1: Biol Psychiatry. 2008 Sep 16. [Epub ahead of print]

Systemic Inflammation Induces Acute Behavioral and Cognitive Changes and
Accelerates Neurodegenerative Disease.

Cunningham C, Campion S, Lunnon K, Murray CL, Woods JF, Deacon RM, Rawlins JN,
Perry VH.

Department of BiochemistryTrinity College Institute of Neuroscience, Trinity
College Dublin, Republic of Ireland.

BACKGROUND: Chronic neurodegeneration results in microglial activation, but the
contribution of inflammation to the progress of neurodegeneration remains
unclear. We have shown that microglia express low levels of proinflammatory
cytokines during chronic neurodegeneration but are "primed" to produce a more
proinflammatory profile after systemic challenge with bacterial endotoxin
(lipopolysaccharide [LPS]). METHODS: Here, we investigated whether
intraperitoneal (IP) challenge with LPS, to mimic systemic infection, in the
early stages of prion disease can 1) produce exaggerated acute behavioral (n = 9)
and central nervous system (CNS) inflammatory (n = 4) responses in diseased
animals compared with control animals, and 2) whether a single LPS challenge can
accelerate disease progression (n = 34-35). RESULTS: Injection of LPS (100
mug/kg), at 12 weeks postinoculation (PI), resulted in heightened CNS
interleukin-1 beta (IL-1beta), tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha), and
interferon-beta (IFN-beta) transcription and microglial IL-1beta translation in
prion-diseased animals relative to control animals. This inflammation caused
exaggerated impairments in burrowing and locomotor activity, and induced
hypothermia and cognitive changes in prion-diseased animals that were absent in
LPS-treated control animals. At 15 weeks PI, LPS (500 mug/kg) acutely impaired
motor coordination and muscle strength in prion-diseased but not in control
animals. After recovery, these animals also showed earlier onset of
disease-associated impairments on these parameters. CONCLUSIONS: These data
demonstrate that transient systemic inflammation superimposed on
neurodegenerative disease acutely exacerbates cognitive and motor symptoms of
disease and accelerates disease progression. These deleterious effects of
systemic inflammation have implications for the treatment of chronic
neurodegeneration and associated delirium.


PMID: 18801476 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

BTW, Ron, was your burrowing ability affected? :-)

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