“The Role of the Endothelin-1 Pathway in the Disruption of the Blood Brain Barrier in Neuro-Inflammatory Disease”
Advised by Dr. Helen Murphy, psychology, and Dr. Cyrilla Wideman, Biology, for the Neuroscience Program
Abstract
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune neuro-inflammatory disease characterized by disruption of the blood brain barrier (BBB) and demyelination of axons. MS does not occur naturally in mice, so a mouse model of the disease called experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) was used as it produces pathological symptoms like those of MS. In this double-blind experiment, healthy control mice, EAE mice, and EAE mice treated with bosentan (a drug that blocks the endothelin pro-inflammatory pathway) were compared based the amount of fibrinogen that leaked into the parenchyma of the spinal cord. Overall, the experiment resulted in a statistically significant reduction in fibrinogen leakage in the EAE bosentan treated mice compared to the vehicle-treated EAE mice.