Term Paper: Is the brain immunologically privileged?

[Wek]

Term Paper: "Is the brain immunologically privileged?"

I have to write a term paper for my neuroscience class and the theme is "Is the brain immunologically privileged?". According to my professor I have a pretty nice introduction that explains the anatomical aspects of the brain that makes it immunologically privileged but he told me I needed some more work using research papers.

My question is: what do you guys think I could/should focus on (topic-wise)? I'm don't really know what else I can talk about that will demonstrate the brain is immunologically privileged.

Thanks, any help is appreciated.

 

[ikjadoon]

Ooohh, I have an idea. Are we talking blood brain barrier, etc.?

You could do a topic on brain cancer and the effectiveness of treatments due to the BBB?

~Ibrahim~

 

[Wek]

Yes, the paper is basically about the BBB.

That's actually a great topic. I was also thinknig about talking how Alzhimer's and some other diseases are involved wit the breakdown of the BBB.

 

[ikjadoon]

:)

Ooh, yeah. :D Those sound good!

I did a project on boron neutron capture therapy a while back (it was legit made awesome by none other than folks here at PF!) and it was a way to bypass the blood brain barrier. Definitely very interesting stuff. Are you at a college? If so, you probably have a subscription to Academic Search Premier/EBSCOHost which has a good amount of science articles; I mean, it's probably not enough for some junior/senior-level stuff, but for most other stuff it's perfect. Here's an article I used:

http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=22436818&site=ehost-live

~Ibrahim~

 

[chemisttree]

My question is: what do you guys think I could/should focus on (topic-wise)? I'm don't really know what else I can talk about that will demonstrate the brain is immunologically privileged.

Why demonstrate it rather than discuss how it affects medical treatments for diseases of the brain?

http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S105532070700083X

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/405662_3

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/405662_6