Author: Hao Jin#1,2,3, Mengtong Li#4,5, Eric Jeong4,5, Felipe Castro-Martinez6, Charles S Zuker7,8
Affiliation:
1 Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA. hao.jin@NIH.gov.
2 Department of Neuroscience, Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA. hao.jin@NIH.gov.
3 Laboratory of Host Immunity and Microbiome, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Bethesda, MD, USA. hao.jin@NIH.gov.
4 Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA.
5 Department of Neuroscience, Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA.
6 Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD, USA.
7 Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA. cz2195@columbia.edu.
8 Department of Neuroscience, Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA. cz2195@columbia.edu.
Conference/Journal: Nature
Date published: 2024 May 1
Other:
Special Notes: doi: 10.1038/s41586-024-07469-y. , Word Count: 175
The body-brain axis is emerging as a principal conductor of organismal physiology. It senses and controls organ function1,2, metabolism3 and nutritional state4-6. Here, we show that a peripheral immune insult powerfully activates the body-brain axis to regulate immune responses. We demonstrate that pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines communicate with distinct populations of vagal neurons to inform the brain of an emerging inflammatory response. In turn, the brain tightly modulates the course of the peripheral immune response. Genetic silencing of this body-to-brain circuit produced unregulated and out-of-control inflammatory responses. By contrast, activating, rather than silencing, this circuit affords exceptional neural control of immune responses. We used single-cell RNA sequencing, combined with functional imaging, to identify the circuit components of this neuro-immune axis, and showed that its selective manipulation can effectively suppress the pro-inflammatory response while enhancing an anti-inflammatory state. The brain-evoked transformation of the course of an immune response offers new possibilities in the modulation of a wide range of immune disorders, from autoimmune diseases to cytokine storm and shock.
PMID: 38692285 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07469-y
