Center for Brain Immunology and Glia (BIG), Department of Pathology & Immunology, Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, St Louis, MO, USA.
Neuroscience Graduate Program, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA.
Nat Rev Immunol. 2021 Aug;21(8):526-541. doi: 10.1038/s41577-021-00508-z. Epub 2021 Mar 1.
Interactions between the immune system and the nervous system have been described mostly in the context of diseases. More recent studies have begun to reveal how certain immune cell-derived soluble effectors, the cytokines, can influence host behaviour even in the absence of infection. In this Review, we contemplate how the immune system shapes nervous system function and how it controls the manifestation of host behaviour. Interactions between these two highly complex systems are discussed here also in the context of evolution, as both may have evolved to maximize an organism's ability to respond to environmental threats in order to survive. We describe how the immune system relays information to the nervous system and how cytokine signalling occurs in neurons. We also speculate on how the brain may be hardwired to receive and process information from the immune system. Finally, we propose a unified theory depicting a co-evolution of the immune system and host behaviour in response to the evolutionary pressure of pathogens.
免疫系统和神经系统之间的相互作用主要在疾病的背景下被描述。最近的研究开始揭示，某些免疫细胞衍生的可溶性效应物，即细胞因子，即使在没有感染的情况下，也能影响宿主的行为。在这篇综述中，我们思考了免疫系统如何塑造神经系统功能，以及它如何控制宿主行为的表现。本文还讨论了这两个高度复杂系统之间的相互作用，因为它们可能是为了最大限度地提高生物体应对环境威胁的能力而进化的，以便生存。我们描述了免疫系统如何将信息传递给神经系统，以及细胞因子信号在神经元中是如何发生的。我们还推测了大脑是如何接收和处理来自免疫系统的信息的。最后，我们提出了一个统一的理论，描述了免疫系统和宿主行为为了应对病原体的进化压力而共同进化。
