Leukocyte sensitivity to brain fractions in neurological diseases.

Abstract

Quantitative comparisons have been made of the degree of inhibition of migration of buffy coat leukocytes on exposure to various concentrations of several physicochemically separated fractions of brain. By contrast with leukocytes obtained from normal people, those from several patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) are inhibited on exposure to remarkably small concentrations of ultracentrifugally prepared synaptosomes. Stroke patients become comparably sensitized during the first week after the stroke, and some patients with brain tumors are also hypersensitive. Since it is unlikely that patients with MS can be tested before they acquire the disease, it will be very difficult to establish whether autosensitization can be primarily (etiologically) involved in MS. Whether autosensitization can be secondarily (pathogenetically) involved in MS still remains to be proved.