(https://support.doctorpodcasting.com/media/k2/items/cache/524c6028317b4d6e15bb8dd426be8e5c_Generic.jpg) Despite a prevalence of over 50% among patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), neuropsychiatric symptoms of SLE (NP-SLE), including anxiety and movement disorders, have not been well understood. The paucity of data examining underlying mechanisms is what spurred the work of Carla M. Cuda, PhD, pointing to microglia as a driver of disease.
Dr. Cuda, who is assistant professor of Rheumatology at Northwestern Medicine, and other Northwestern Medicine investigators were the first to show that microglial expression of disease-associated microglia (DAM)-associated genes correlates with the severity of hippocampal- and cerebellar-associated behavioral deficits in an NP-SLE model prior to overt systemic disease. While DAM have been extensively studied in Alzheimer's disease, no studies have specifically examined DAM in NP-SLE, until now.