Brain-regulated immunity

The philosophical mind-body problem examines the relationship between the mind, a mental process, and its impact on the body, a physical entity. Such interactions are manifested in modern medicine by the emergence of disease following stress, or recovery in response to placebo treatment. Nevertheless, this fundamental aspect of physiology remains largely unexplored. In this talk I will focus on a specific aspect of brain-body interactions, the dialog between the brain and the immune system, the body’s main protection mechanism. I will demonstrate mechanisms whereby these two systems can work in coordination, how the brain detects immune activity and how specific brain activity can orchestrate immune response to cancer and gut inflammation.