Department of Physiology and Pathology, School of Dentistry, São Paulo State University, Araraquara, São Paulo, Brazil.
Department of Neurosciences and Behavior, Ribeirão Preto Medical School, University of São Paulo, Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, Brazil.
Front Immunol. 2022 Oct 24;13:1033774. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2022.1033774. eCollection 2022.
The idea that the nervous system communicates with the immune system to regulate physiological and pathological processes is not new. However, there is still much to learn about how these interactions occur under different conditions. The carotid body (CB) is a sensory organ located in the neck, classically known as the primary sensor of the oxygen (O) levels in the organism of mammals. When the partial pressure of O in the arterial blood falls, the CB alerts the brain which coordinates cardiorespiratory responses to ensure adequate Osupply to all tissues and organs in the body. A growing body of evidence, however, has demonstrated that the CB is much more than an O sensor. Actually, the CB is a multimodal sensor with the extraordinary ability to detect a wide diversity of circulating molecules in the arterial blood, including inflammatory mediators. In this review, we introduce the literature supporting the role of the CB as a critical component of neuroimmune interactions. Based on ours and other studies, we propose a novel neuroimmune pathway in which the CB acts as a sensor of circulating inflammatory mediators and, in conditions of systemic inflammation, recruits a sympathetic-mediated counteracting mechanism that appears to be a protective response.
神经系统与免疫系统相互交流以调节生理和病理过程的观点并不新鲜。然而，对于这些相互作用在不同条件下是如何发生的，我们还有很多需要了解。颈动脉体（CB）是位于颈部的感觉器官，通常被认为是哺乳动物体内氧气（O）水平的主要传感器。当动脉血液中的 O 分压下降时，CB 会向大脑发出警报，大脑会协调心肺反应，以确保身体所有组织和器官都能获得足够的 O 供应。然而，越来越多的证据表明，CB 不仅仅是一个 O 传感器。实际上，CB 是一个多模态传感器，具有非凡的能力，可以检测到动脉血液中包括炎症介质在内的多种循环分子。在这篇综述中，我们介绍了支持 CB 作为神经免疫相互作用关键组成部分的文献。基于我们自己和其他研究，我们提出了一个新的神经免疫途径，其中 CB 作为循环炎症介质的传感器，在全身炎症的情况下，募集一种交感神经介导的拮抗机制，这似乎是一种保护反应。
