A groundbreaking study conducted at the University of Haifa has identified a neural circuit that allows the brain to regulate the immune system's activity through learning processes similar to associative learning. The research, published in the prestigious journal Nature Neuroscience, sheds light on the intricate communication between the brain and the immune system.
Led by Dr. Haneen Kayyal, Federica Cruciani, and Dr. Sailendrakumar Kolatt Chandran, in collaboration with Prof. Amiram Ariel and Prof. Asya Rolls, the study reveals that the brain and the immune system collaborate to prepare for future challenges. This collaboration involves the "representation" of the immune system in the brain and the integration of this information with sensory inputs, such as taste.
The study builds upon a 70-year-old finding demonstrating that an association can be created between a specific taste and the activation or suppression of the immune system. This phenomenon, known as the conditioned immune response, is considered a primitive explanation for the placebo effect.
Researchers identified a protocol where pairing a new taste with a substance that triggers an immune response leads to a similar immune reaction even days later, solely due to the previous exposure to the taste. This learning process occurs in the insula, a region of the brain responsible for coding and evaluating tastes and immune responses.
The study further revealed a specific group of connecting cells in the insula that play a crucial role in transmitting information between the brain and the immune system. Disrupting these pathways significantly impacted the retrieval of the immune response, highlighting their essential role in functional body-brain communication.
This discovery opens new therapeutic possibilities for a variety of diseases, as many illnesses arise from impairments in the immune system's ability to respond to threats. The study suggests new therapeutic directions that involve coordinating the regulation of behavior, brain activity, and immune system function to optimize disease treatment.