Editorial: Targeting Neuroinflammation in Central Nervous System Disorders: Uncovering Mechanisms, Pharmacological Targets, and Neuropharmaceutical Developments

PÉREZ, MARIELA FERNANDA; SARAVIA, FLAVIA; CASTRO, MARÍA GRACIELA; BREGONZIO, CLAUDIA

Frontiers in Pharmacology

Frontiers Media S.A.

Año: 2021 vol. 12

In this special issue we present a series of reviews and research papers written from leading authorshighlighting neuroinflammation as a common target to overcome and understand brain disorders.Neuroinflammation plays a key role in Parkinson, Alzheimer, schizophrenia, major depression anddrug addiction, among others. Some threads include: autophagic dysfunction (essential for theremoval of unnecessary cellular constituents and dysfunctional components), dysfunctional centralnervous system (CNS) lymphatic drainage (dampened cleansing of molecules prone to aggregationand reduced immune cell egress into the draining cervical lymphatic nodes), traumatic brain injuryand psychostimulants and alcohol abuse disorders. The growing evidence shows that attenuation ofneuroinflammation brings beneficial effects against neurodegeneration and cognitive deficitsassociated with a plethora of CNS disorders. Considering this last issue, the identification of itsmost relevant biological processes and possible pharmacological targets remains a major challenge.Keeping in mind the role of neuroinflammation in psychiatric disorders and its implications inmediating worsening of the symptoms, it is important to highlight the search of biomarkers for earlydiagnosis and improved treatment. In this sense it is important to consider a recent study performedin patients with major psychiatric disorders showing alterations in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF)inflammatory cytokine levels. Hidese et al. found that CSF interferon-β levels, among 19cytokines tested was significantly higher in patients with schizophrenia, or bipolar disorderwhen compared to healthy controls. This represents novel evidence showing prominentstatistical differences between psychiatric groups and healthy controls. Along the same lines, ina very interesting computational exploration of the molecular network associated toneuroinflammation in Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Idrissi et al. found that 94 proteins weresignificantly associated. Over the scientific literature they identified eleven key proteins with thehighest ability to control neuroinflammatory processes significantly associated with AD