Neuroimmunology, Neurological disorders and Neurogenetics

Biography

Biography: Helieh Oz

Abstract

Biomarkers are measurable indicators for biological conditions, which extend from normal biological processes, to pathological progress as well as pharmacological response and therapeutical interventions. Biomarker surrogates are required for early diagnosis and treatments of chronic inflammatory and neurological disorders. Appropriate surrogates are required to be sensitive, specific, noninvasive and feasible yet to predict recoveries. Effective biomarkers are often involved in pathophysiological chain. These markers can be classified as simple and nonspecific (e.g. blood pressure, hematogram, BMI), more specific (e.g. enzymes, cytokines, chimokines) or complex and expensive (e.g. FMRI, PET and, CT scans).  Pro-inflammatory cytokine, tumor necrosis factor α (TNFα) is released during the early process of inflammatory response following insults. TNFα is a prominent inflammatory biomarker which up-regulates various inflammatory cytokines and chimokines biomarkers, to initiate acute and chronic stages of inflammation and pain related sensation in inflammatory and neurophathic patients and models. TNFα is released by activate macrophages, microglia, neurons, astroglia, CD4+ lymphocytes, and natural killer cells. In a historical clinical trial (1988) subjects were injected with TNFα when shortly after had developed fever, pain and general malaise. As, the initial inflammatory insult primes the immune system, the succeeding insult/s amplify/s deleterious responses for inflammatory and neuropathic disprders. Dysregulation of TNFα contributes to development of inflammatory conditions such as headache, periodontal, temporomandibular and neuropathic pain. Trigeminal neuropathic pain is common following trigeminal nerve damage post surgical procedures and maxillofacial injuries. Analysis of proteomic profiling at multiple time points identify several altered levels of inflammatory cytokines and chimokines. This presentation will explore surrogate markers of inflammatory and neuropathic disorders and their implication in diagnostics as well as possible clinical interventions.