Autoimmunity in the brain: The pathogenesis insight from cell biology

The aim of the study is to explore the relationship between leakage of the blood-brain barrier and inflammation, the reason why demyelination occurs - seemingly in the absence of an antigen-specific immune response that requires explanation if a coherent account of an inflammatory-mediated demyelination is to be achieved. In this study the cellular biology of the glial cells important for the synthesis and maintenance of central nervous system (CNS) myelin and their inter-relations with other environmental cells (neuronal, microglial, olygodendroglial, astrocytes, endothelial, epithelial, T lymphocytes, B lymphocytes, monocytes, and macrophages) and with the compound of the extracellular matrix (ECM) during the development of an autoimmune inflammatory and demyelinating processes in the brain was analyzed. Upon activation in the peripheral tissue, immune cells reach their target organ via bloodstream and interacting with blood vessels wall components in the absence of exogenous stimulus mount an attack against the local milleu, which is the starting point of a pathogenic inflammatory reaction. Each of these contacts may trigger profuse secretion of cytokines, chemokines, and other soluble inflammatory mediators, which in the CNS by activating of local glial cells and by attracting and stimulating blood-borne monocyte/macrophages can act directly on neural cells and will cause their demyelination

Glacial geomorphology: towards a convergence of glaciology and geomorphology

This review presents a perspective on recent trends in glacial geomorphological research, which has seen an increasing engagement with investigating glaciation over larger and longer timescales facilitated by advances in remote sensing and numerical modelling. Remote sensing has enabled the visualization of deglaciated landscapes and glacial landform assemblages across continental scales, from which hypotheses of millennial-scale glacial landscape evolution and associations of landforms with palaeo-ice streams have been developed. To test these ideas rigorously, the related goal of imaging comparable subglacial landscapes and landforms beneath contemporary ice masses is being addressed through the application of radar and seismic technologies. Focusing on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, we review progress to date in achieving this goal, and the use of radar and seismic imaging to assess: (1) subglacial bed morphology and roughness; (2) subglacial bed reflectivity; and (3) subglacial sediment properties. Numerical modelling, now the primary modus operandi of 'glaciologists' investigating the dynamics of modern ice sheets, offers significant potential for testing 'glacial geomorphological' hypotheses of continental glacial landscape evolution and smaller-scale landform development, and some recent examples of such an approach are presented. We close by identifying some future challenges in glacial geomorphology, which include: (1) embracing numerical modelling as a framework for testing hypotheses of glacial landform and landscape development; (2) identifying analogues beneath modern ice sheets for landscapes and landforms observed across deglaciated terrains; (3) repeat-surveying dynamic subglacial landforms to assess scales of formation and evolution; and (4) applying glacial geomorphological expertise more fully to extraterrestrial cryospheres