Ground-breaking Southampton brain research 'will help understand Alzheimer's'

The study, led by PhD student Katharine Askew, assessed the proliferation of microglia, from both mouse and human brain, using staining of sections with specific antibodies alongside live imaging of the cells.

The research was published in open access journal Cell Reports shows that cells called Microglia turnover is 10 times faster which allows the whole population of Microglia cells to be renewed several times during a lifetime.

Dr Diego Gomez-Nicola, who supervised Katharine’s study said "Microglia are constantly using the brain to find and fix issues.

"We previously thought that microglia would renew themselves so slowly that a whole lifetime would not suffice to renew the whole population.

"But now we can talk about up to six renewal cycles in a lifetime. We now need to reinterpret how they interact and regulate the function of other brain cells to understand their full potential.”

Research also discovered that the number of micrological cells remains relatively unchanged from birth until aging because of maintenance by the spatial and temporal coupling of cell division and cell death.

The Southampton team conducting the research will help the understanding of the microglia cells behaviour in common problems like Alzheimer’s where microglia contribute to the person’s cognitive decline.

Dr Diego Gomez-Nicola added “This finding provides a basic piece of cell biology, needed to understand the functions of microglia and their interaction with other cells in the brain.

"Understanding the clockwork of microglia will help understand their behaviour in psychiatric and neurodegenerative diseases of the brain like Alzheimer’s.”

The research was carried out in partnership with researchers from University of Oxford, University of Tubingen and University of Hamburg in Germany and the Achucarro Basque Center for Neuroscience in Spain.