From inflammation to sickness and depression: when the immune system subjugates the brain?

Question

Recently, some research, for example this article(http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2919277/) has proposed that inflammation can cause innate immune cells to produce pro-inflammatory cytokines that act on the brain to cause sickness behaviour.My questions are:(1) What medication would potentially help to reduce the inflammation? I am not a biology expert so I do get a little confused reading the research articles.(2) What are cytokines in laymen's terms? Are they the same as histamines which cause allergies?

Answer 1

(1) That's a difficult question. It depends on the cause of inflammation. You would focus on treating the underlying disease that was causing the inflammation. In some conditions, glucocorticoids like Prednisone are given to reduce inflammation.

(2) A cytokine is a cell modulation protein. It binds to receptors on the outside of the cell which causes an effect (the effect depends on the type of cytokine). It functions sort of like a hormone. They aren't the same as histamines, but function similarly in that they bind to a receptor on the outside of a cell and cause an effect.