Construction engineer, menace and protector: the many role for microglia in brain damage in babies.

What is it about?

We describe what role microglia play in brain injury in babies, plus describing the origin and maturation of these cells. Microglia are a type of immune cell, meaning that they help protect the brain from microbes and they clean up after injury although, they can be too 'active' and also damage the brain. Over the past decade, we have also learnt that microglia help in the construction of the brain - guiding cells to find their proper place in the brain, removing cells that are not needed and eating off connections (synapses) between cells that are not useful. We describe how these two roles for microglia - protector and builder- mean that microglia are central in determining what happens when the brain of a baby is injured, and might be key to helping repair the brain.

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Photo by Brytny.com on Unsplash

Photo by Brytny.com on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Brain injury around the time of birth happens in around 1 in 10 babies. We cant treat these injuries well. Often they mean that the baby will grow up to have problems thinking, learning or moving, and this decreases the quality of life for the person and has impacts on their family and caregivers, plus economic impacts. Thie review indicates that a better understanding of microglia might be the key to developing effective therapies for brain injury in babies - with massive positive impacts on people and our communities as a whole.

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