Colm Cunningham

TL;DR: Both acute and chronic systemic inflammation, associated with increases in serum tumor necrosis factor α, is associated with an increase in cognitive decline in Alzheimer disease.

TL;DR: Evidence is reviewed to support the hypothesis that in chronic neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, with an ongoing innate immune response in the brain, systemic infections and inflammation can cause acute exacerbations of symptoms and drive the progression of neurodegenersation.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors point out the shortcomings of binary divisions of reactive astrocytes into good-vs-bad, neurotoxic vs-neuroprotective or A1-vs.A2.

TL;DR: Both central and peripheral inflammation can exacerbate local brain inflammation and neuronal death, and the finding that a single acute systemic inflammatory event can induce neuronal death in the CNS has implications for therapy in neurodegenerative diseases.

TL;DR: It is now apparent in multiple chronic disease states, and in ageing, that microglia are primed by prior pathology, or by genetic predisposition, to respond more vigorously to subsequent inflammatory stimulation, thus transforming an adaptive CNS inflammatory response to systemic inflammation, into one that has deleterious consequences for the individual.