Brito, Maria Alexandra Silva Braga PedreiraCoelho, Teresa Paula Castanho2017-03-062017-03-0620152016http://hdl.handle.net/10451/26786Trabalho Final de Mestrado Integrado, Ciências Farmacêuticas, Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Farmácia, 2014The concept of immunotherapy is commonly considered as the prevention and/or treatment of diseases by modifying the immune response. Immunotherapy has been in use over the past two centuries and recent findings concerning the development of new technologies to manipulate the immune response make immunotherapy an interesting possibility to treat neurological diseases. Neurological diseases are, essentially, declines in neural homeostasis that can be caused by diverse etiologies that can obtain a wide range of responses. Presently it is recognized that the Central Nervous System (CNS) is involved in a great bidirectional communication with the immune system, even though treated for years like an immune privileged tissue. Neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer disease (AD) and Multiple Sclerosis (MS) are between the most important health problems in developed countries. Several immunomodulatory drug therapies have been established to try and control diseases activity. However, while MS has seen approved several new immunotherapies, presently, there is no approved disease-modifying cure or prevention for AD. A significant number of new immunomodulatory and immunosuppressive agents are in progress and attracting huge attention. These may offer potential advantages over presented treatments in terms of efficacy, but some agents may raise safety concerns.application/pdfporAlzheimer's diseaseImmunotherapyMestrado Integrado - 2014Multiple SclerosisNeurodegenerationmaster thesis