The Glial Turn: How Aging Brain Cells Drive Neurodegeneration
A comprehensive review in the Journal of Neurochemistry argues for a fundamental shift in our understanding of neurodegenerative diseases, moving from a neuron-centric model to one focused on dysfunctional glial networks. The authors detail how astrocytes and microglia, the brain’s support cells, become senescent with age, acquiring a harmful secretory profile. This chronic state of glial dysfunction and neuroinflammation disrupts synaptic integrity and metabolic support, creating a vulnerable environment that precedes and drives neuronal loss in conditions like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.
Why it might matter to you:
This paradigm shift underscores glial senescence as a central, upstream mechanism in disease progression, suggesting new targets for therapeutic intervention. For biomarker development, it highlights the potential of measuring senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP) factors and glia-derived extracellular vesicles in blood as systemic indicators of brain aging and pathology. This framework encourages the integration of glial health metrics into multimodal biomarker panels to better capture the complex biology of neurodegeneration.
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