Actually, this microglia has been the most fascinating thing for me in the last two years. To make things more complicated, there are two kinds of it. The one that sits in the tissue as a watchdog against pathogens and injury is generally deleterious; the only thing it can do is starting inflammation as a "whistleblower" and scavenger of sorts. The second one that actually does repair comes from the bone marrow, possible recruited by this inflammation. Amazing stuff. Also, mice without immunity seem to be significantly more stupid than wild type!
And it gets weirder. There are genetic mutations to hox genes, which normally only affect body layout, that can affect the behavior of microglia as well...and those mutations can lead to really complex high-level behaviors. I actually
blogged about it recently, in fact.
Franklin, I am impressed about your knowledge of biology!
Thanks! I actually majored in neurobiology, back in my misspent college days. Didn't end up in a field even remotely related, though.
