Brain Immune Interactions as the Basis of Gulf War Illness: Gulf War Illness Consortium (GWIC)
Abstract
The primary function of the Gulf War Illness (GWIC) consortium is to identify the pathobiological mechanisms of Gulf War Illness. The ultimate goal is to discover and characterize biomarkers of Gulf War illness and then identify targeted treatment strategies. The GWIC allows for the development of multidisciplinary collaborations targeting suspected brain- immune signaling alterations in GWI. The GWIC consortium central hypothesis identifies chronic neuroinflammation as an end result of initial glial activation and subsequent priming of glial responses that cause a chronic activation loop of stronger and longer proinflammatory signaling effects between the immune system and the brain. The GWIC includes both clinical (human) and preclinical (animal and cell) studies and researchers in the 10 funded sub-studies. These studies are incorporating sufficient overlap of scientific content area to inform each other in a bench-to-bedside-to-bench approach. Results to date from the preclinical (animal) studies suggest a strong neuroinflammatory component to the illness model and provide important leads for treatment development approaches in the animal model before translation to the clinic. Clinical study recruitment is ongoing and has shown correlations between proinflammatory cytokine markers and behavioral and neuroimaging outcomes. The final larger sample size will continue to make these inter-relationships clearer.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 2020
- Accession Number
- AD1123650
Entities
People
- Kimberly Sullivan
Organizations
- Boston University Medical Campus