Your immune system protects you from disease. New research finds that it may even control your behavior. A study published on July 13 in the journal Nature may point the way toward future treatments for neurological conditions.
The immune system connects to the brain in ways that scientists are only beginning to understand. Since the 1930s, researchers have noted a strong correlation between neurological dysfunction—such as schizophrenia, autism, and Alzheimer’s disease—and symptoms of immune system dysfunction, such as autoimmune disease, and gastrointestinal problems. But how these pieces fit together has remained a mystery.
For decades, the immune system was thought to have no direct connection to the brain because it had no connection to the lymphatic system (the network that carries immune cells throughout the rest of the body).
But last year, researchers from the University of Virginia (UVA) School of Medicine found evidence of meningeal vessels that linked the brain to the lymphatic system. This textbook-changing discovery opened up a whole new avenue of research to help explain the brain-immune system connection.
Under the direction of Dr. Jonathan Kipnis, chairman of UVA’s Department of Neuroscience, the team’s latest discovery finds that restricting a single type of immune molecule (interferon gamma) causes parts of a mouse’s brain to become hyperactive, leading to socially abnormal behavior.
