Cited by 695Neuroinflammation and Neurodegeneration MechanismsAlzheimer's disease research and treatmentsNeurological Disease Mechanisms and Treatments

Eliminating microglia in Alzheimer’s mice prevents neuronal loss without modulating amyloid-β pathology

Open access
Spangenberg, Elizabeth E., Lee, Rafael J., Najafi, Allison R., Rice, Rachel A., Elmore, Monica R. P., Blurton-Jones, Mathew, West, Brian L., Green, Kim N.·2016·Brain

Abstract

In addition to amyloid-β plaque and tau neurofibrillary tangle deposition, neuroinflammation is considered a key feature of Alzheimer’s disease pathology. Inflammation in Alzheimer's disease is characterized by the presence of reactive astrocytes and activated microglia surrounding amyloid plaques, implicating their role in disease pathogenesis. Microglia in the healthy adult mouse depend on colony-stimulating factor 1 receptor (CSF1R) signalling for survival, and pharmacological inhibition of this receptor results in rapid elimination of nearly all of the microglia in the central nervous system. In this study, we set out to determine if chronically activated microglia in the Alzheimer's disease brain are also dependent on CSF1R signalling, and if so, how these cells contribute to disease pathogenesis. Ten-month-old 5xfAD mice were treated with a selective CSF1R inhibitor for 1 month, resulting in the elimination of ∼80% of microglia. Chronic microglial elimination does not alter amyloid-β levels or plaque load; however, it does rescue dendritic spine loss and prevent neuronal loss in 5xfAD mice, as well as reduce overall neuroinflammation. Importantly, behavioural testing revealed improvements in contextual memory. Collectively, these results demonstrate that microglia contribute to neuronal loss, as well as memory impairments in 5xfAD mice, but do not mediate or protect from amyloid pathology. Microglia-mediated inflammation is a driving force in Alzheimer’s disease pathogenesis. Spangenberg et al . show that elimination of microglia in 5xfAD mice improves cognitive function and ameliorates synaptic/neuronal loss without altering amyloid-β levels or plaque load. Thus, microglia act downstream of plaques to mediate damage to the brain.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1093/brain/aww016

Cites

88 of 88 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • In mice that serve as a model for Alzheimer's disease, microglia depletion was generally beneficial by decreasing plaque formation.

    “In mice that serve as a model for Alzheimer’s disease, microglia depletion was generally beneficial by decreasing plaque formation (26).”

    From Microglia depletion exacerbates demyelination and impairs remyelination in a neurotropic coronavirus infection (2020) · cites this paper as [26]

    The Results section, “Microglia do not modulate amyloid-β pathology,” reports no significant change in plaque number, size, or load after microglial depletion in 5xfAD mice. The Introduction says depletion improved memory and prevented neuronal loss, but not by decreasing plaques. The supplied passages do not give page numbers. (LLM, conf=0.94)

    Checked by a reasoning model — may be wrong.

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
  • In mouse models of AD, genetic or pharmacological depletion of microglia prevented microglia association with amyloid plaques and neuronal loss, leading to improved learning and memory without affecting amyloid plaque load.

    “In mouse models of AD genetic or pharmacological depletion of microglia prevented microglia association with amyloid plaques and neuronal loss, which led to improved learning and memory without affecting amyloid plaque load in mouse brain (Dagher et al., 2015; Rice et al., 2015; Spangenberg et al., 2016).”

    From Alzheimer's-associated PU.1 expression levels regulate microglial inflammatory response (2021) · cites this paper as Spangenberg et al., 2016

    The Introduction and the section on contextual memory report that pharmacological microglial depletion in 5xfAD mice prevented neuronal loss and reduced plaque-associated microglia; the amyloid-pathology section reports no change in plaque load. This paper does not report genetic depletion, and plaque association was reduced rather than prevented. Contextual memory improved only as a statistical trend (P = 0.0813), so the claim overstates that result. (LLM, conf=0.89)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
  • Microglia depletion before or after Aβ pathology in AD mouse models improved contextual memory.

    “microglia depletion before or after the formation of Aβ pathology in mouse models of AD resulted in improved contextual memory”

    From Microglia and monocytes in inflammatory CNS disease: integrating phenotype and function (2022) · cites this paper as [296]

    The contextual-memory Results section (page not provided) reports that microglia depletion in 10-month-old 5xfAD mice, which already had extensive amyloid pathology, produced a trend toward improved contextual fear-conditioning performance (P = 0.0813). The section on young 5xfAD mice reports depletion before plaque formation but measures amyloid pathology, not contextual memory. Thus the source does not support improved contextual memory from depletion before Aβ pathology, and the observed improvement after pathology was a trend rather than a statistically significant result. (LLM, conf=0.90)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
  • Several groups have reported that microglial elimination via CSF1R inhibition improves behavioral performance and synaptic functioning independent of Aβ accumulation in multiple transgenic mouse models of AD (3xTg, 5xFAD, APP/PS1).

    “While the use of these agents is limited in experimental TBI studies, several groups have reported that microglial elimination [via colony-stimulating factor 1 receptor (CSF1R) inhibition] improves behavioral performance and synaptic functioning independent of Aβ accumulation in multiple transgenic mouse models of AD (3xTg, 5xFAD, APP/PS1) (236–238).”

    From The Inflammatory Continuum of Traumatic Brain Injury and Alzheimer’s Disease (2018) · cites this paper as [236]

    The Results on 5xfAD mice report that CSF1R inhibition eliminated microglia and increased mushroom-spine density; the Discussion reports unchanged amyloid-β levels and plaque load. But the behavioral result was only a trend toward improved contextual memory (P = 0.0813), and the paper measured spine structure rather than synaptic functioning directly. The other mouse models appear in a sentence supported by multiple citations, not as models studied in this paper. (LLM, conf=0.87)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
  • Ablation of microglia in younger mice before cerebral amyloidosis reduces Aβ deposition, while later ablation does not alter Aβ load.

    “Ablation of microglia in younger mice before development of cerebral amyloidosis thus reduces Aβ deposition [294], while ablation of microglia later in disease (i.e., in 10-month-old 5xFAD mice) [296], does not alter Aβ load.”

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Spangenberg, E. E., Lee, R. J., Najafi, A. R., Rice, R. A., Elmore, M. R. P., Blurton-Jones, M., West, B. L., & Green, K. N.
Affiliations
  • University of California, Irvine (US)
  • Plexxikon (United States) (US)
Venue
Brain
Published
2016-02-26
Volume
139
Issue
4
Pages
1265-1281
ISSN
  • 0006-8950 (ISSN-L)
  • 1460-2156
OpenAlex
W2281702574
Cited by
695
References
88
Citations by year
2026: 44 · 2025: 63 · 2024: 66 · 2023: 79 · 2022: 80 · 2021: 90 · 2020: 80 · 2019: 62 · 2018: 66 · 2017: 48 · 2016: 16
FWCI
31.14
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Brain (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion)
  • HighWire Press Open Archive (submittedVersion)
Funders
  • Alzheimer's Association
  • Glenn Foundation for Medical Research
  • Plexxikon
  • National Institutes of Health (UL1TR001414, AG00096, AG00538)
  • National Institute on Aging (AG00096, AG 00538, P50AG016573, T32AG000096)
  • National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (F31NS086409, R01NS083801)
  • National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Neurology › Neuroinflammation and Neurodegeneration Mechanisms
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Physiology › Alzheimer's disease research and treatments
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Neurology › Neurological Disease Mechanisms and Treatments
Keywords
microglia, Alzheimer's disease, CSF1R inhibition, neuroinflammation, amyloid plaques, neuronal loss, dendritic spine loss, 5xFAD mice, contextual memory, synaptic loss
MeSH terms
Alzheimer Disease, Animals, Brain, Female, Male, Mice, Inbred C57BL, Mice, Transgenic, Neurons, Amyloid beta-Peptides, Microglia, Mice, Mice, 129 Strain, Plaque, Amyloid

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review