AUTHOR=Leite Amanda de Oliveira Ferreira , Bento Torres Neto João , dos Reis Renata Rodrigues , Sobral Luciane Lobato , de Souza Aline Cristine Passos , Trévia Nonata , de Oliveira Roseane Borner , Lins Nara Alves de Almeida , Diniz Daniel Guerreiro , Diniz José Antonio Picanço , Vasconcelos Pedro Fernando da Costa , Anthony Daniel Clive , Brites Dora , Picanço Diniz Cristovam Wanderley TITLE=Unwanted Exacerbation of the Immune Response in Neurodegenerative Disease: A Time to Review the Impact JOURNAL=Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience VOLUME=15 YEAR=2021 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/cellular-neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fncel.2021.749595 DOI=10.3389/fncel.2021.749595 ISSN=1662-5102 ABSTRACT=

The COVID-19 pandemic imposed a series of behavioral changes that resulted in increased social isolation and a more sedentary life for many across all age groups, but, above all, for the elderly population who are the most vulnerable to infections and chronic neurodegenerative diseases. Systemic inflammatory responses are known to accelerate neurodegenerative disease progression, which leads to permanent damage, loss of brain function, and the loss of autonomy for many aged people. During the COVID-19 pandemic, a spectrum of inflammatory responses was generated in affected individuals, and it is expected that the elderly patients with chronic neurodegenerative diseases who survived SARSCoV-2 infection, it will be found, sooner or later, that there is a worsening of their neurodegenerative conditions. Using mouse prion disease as a model for chronic neurodegeneration, we review the effects of social isolation, sedentary living, and viral infection on the disease progression with a focus on sickness behavior and on the responses of microglia and astrocytes. Focusing on aging, we discuss the cellular and molecular mechanisms related to immunosenescence in chronic neurodegenerative diseases and how infections may accelerate their progression.