American scientists have found that blueberry extracts can soothe a type of inflammation of the brain.

Scientists from the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) found that if the brain’s immune cells mistake body tissue for a foreign invader and attack it, blueberry extracts can help to quell the resulting inflammation.

The research was conducted by molecular biologist Francis Lau and neuroscientist James Joseph at the Jean Mayer Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University in Boston.

The scientists said that inflammation is thought to be induced by the over-activation of the brain’s immune cells, called microglia. Whilst seeking to repair brain tissue, the microglia send out chemical stress signals, called cytokines, to other cells. These signals start of a chain of reactions, activating genes that express proteins and other stress chemicals to clear away ‘cellular debris’. However, microglia can become ‘chronically overactivated’, and trigger inflammation.

Lau said that for the study, he used microglia from a rodent to study their reactions to toxins. He exposed groups of the cells to various levels of blueberry extracts, and then ‘challenged’ the cells with oxidative stress by exposing them to the toxin that triggers inflammation. He found that the blueberry treatment ‘significantly’ reduced the inflammatory reaction.

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