The interplay between inflammation and neurodegeneration in CNS disease.

This review considers the manner in which inflammation in the CNS contributes to, and protects against, neurodegeneration. A series of questions are posed, first about primarily inflammatory diseases and the causes of neurodegeneration that occurs in them, and then about neurodegenerative diseases and stroke and the role that inflammation plays there. Common themes as well as disease-specific differences are highlighted in this survey of the recent human disease and animal model literature.