Fig. 8From: Glial pathology and retinal neurotoxicity in the anterior visual pathway in experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitisSchematic of glial pathology and neurodegeneration in the retina and optic nerve of EAE mice. In healthy retina, RGCs are layered continuously and there are resting glia (GFAP+ astroglia and microglia). The healthy optic nerve has myelinated axons that are well organized with resting astrocytes and microglia as well. In the early stages of EAE, optic nerve axons were demyelinated in association with infiltrating CD4+ T-cells and activation of microglia. It is thought that activated microglia release cytokines that polarize astrocytes towards a neurotoxic A1 profile associated with neurotoxicity. In the later stages of EAE, post-synaptic proteins and RGCs are depleted. Our findings suggest that EAE recapitulates aspects of MS pathology seen in the anterior visual pathway, and importantly, the time course of events suggests that the MOG 35–55 EAE model could be used to examine the neuroprotective potential of inhibiting activated microglia or neurotoxic astrocytes at peak disease to prevent late neurodegenerationBack to article page