Advertise With UsAdvertise on our extensive network of industry websites and newsletters.
Get the PBR newsletterSign up to our free email to get all the latest PBR
news.Researchers have suggested that cholestatic liver damage may be associated with an immune response affecting the central nervous system, possibly explaining the behavioral effects connected with the disease.
Subscribe to our email newsletter
Liver disease is often associated with ‘sickness behaviors’, such as malaise, listlessness, anorexia, difficulty concentrating and fatigue. In cholestatic liver diseases (where bile production is impaired) fatigue occurs in up to 86% of patients.
Previous studies have suggested that these symptoms originate from changes to the central nervous system (CNS), but little is understood about how these changes occur or the pathways involved.
The results of the present animal studies showed an increase in TNF-alpha (a messenger protein involved in inflammation) production by monocytes and activated endothelial cells, was associated with cholestasis.
The scientists suggest that cholestasis is also associated with a broad activation of other immune cells within the central nervous system that produce TNF-alpha. This conclusion is based upon the assertion that TNF-alpha exerts significant behavioral effects within the CNS including sickness behaviors.
The changes in behavior and neurotransmitter systems which sub-serve these behaviors seen in the rodent models could have direct implications for the same systems in cholestatic patients. However, the risks of using TNF-alpha therapies to treat such patients could outweigh the benefits.