Major depressive disorder is a highly debilitating psychiatric disorder involving the
dysfunction of different cell types in the brain. Microglia are the predominant resident …

The prefrontal cortex (PFC) is not only important in executive functions, but also pain
processing. The latter is dependent on its connections to other areas of the cerebral …

Rationale Psychosocial stressors are a well-documented risk factor for mental illness.
Neuroinflammation, in particular elevated microglial activity, has been proposed to mediate …

Despite decades of intensive research, the biological mechanisms that causally underlie
depression are still unclear, and therefore the development of novel effective antidepressant …

Macrophages are important players in the fight against viral, bacterial, fungal and parasitic
infections. From a resting state they may undertake two activation pathways, the classical …

Psychiatric disorders, including major depressive disorder (MDD), bipolar disorder (BD) and
schizophrenia, affect a significant percentage of the world population. These disorders are …

Interactions between the immune and nervous systems are of central importance in
neuropathic pain, a common and debilitating form of chronic pain caused by a lesion or …

The pleiotropic cytokine interleukin-6 (IL-6) is emerging as a molecule with both beneficial
and destructive potentials. It can exert opposing actions triggering either neuron survival …

Background Cognitive decline occurs frequently in Parkinson's disease (PD), which greatly
decreases the quality of life of patients. However, the mechanisms remain to be investigated …

Chronic pain often occurs in the elderly, particularly in the patients with neurodegenerative
disorders such as Alzheimer's disease (AD). Although studies indicate that chronic pain …