Microglia in neurodegenerative diseases: mechanism and potential therapeutic targets

🤖 Plain-English Summary

Microglia activation is observed in various neurodegenerative diseases. Here we comprehensively review the biology of microglia and the roles of microglia in neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, multiple system atrophy, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, frontotemporal dementia, progressive supranuclear palsy, corticobasal degeneration, dementia with Lewy bodies and Huntington's disease.

🔑 Key Findings

• Recent advances in single-cell technologies have revealed that these reactive microglia were with high spatial and temporal heterogeneity.
• Some identified microglia in specific states correlate with pathological hallmarks and are associated with specific functions.
• Microglia both exert protective function by phagocytosing and clearing pathological protein aggregates and play detrimental roles due to excessive uptake of protein aggregates, which would lead to microglial phagocytic ability impairment, neuroinflammation, and eventually neurodegeneration.

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