New research has found that the immune system plays a vital role in changing behavior by using immune recognition to promote protective behavior against toxins through the transfer of antibodies to the brain. In a mouse study, when IgE antibodies (responsible for activating mast cells that transmit directly to the brain) were blocked, susceptible mice no longer avoided allergens, revealing the immune system’s role in helping animals avoid environmental hazards.
Just the smell of seafood can cause severe nausea in those with allergies, so they will probably avoid it. Similarly, people who get food poisoning from a particular food tend to avoid it thereafter. For a long time, researchers have understood that our immune system plays an important role in our responses to allergens and pathogens in the environment. However, it was not clear whether this played any role in triggering such behavior in relation to allergic triggers.
According to a Yale University-led study recently published in the journal NatureIt turns out that the immune system plays a very important role in changing our behavior.
“We found that immune recognition controls behavior, particularly defensive behavior against toxins that are delivered first through antibodies and then to our brain,” said Ruslan Medzhitov, professor of immunobiology at Yale School of Medicine, Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, and senior author of the paper. to work.
Research shows that without communication with the immune system, the brain does not alert the body to potential dangers in the environment and does not attempt to avoid these threats.
A team in Medzhitov’s laboratory, led by Esther Florsheim, then a postdoctoral researcher at Yale University and now an associate professor at Arizona State University, and Nathaniel Bachtel, a graduate student at the School of Medicine, studied mice susceptible to allergic reactions. to eggs, a protein found in chicken eggs. As expected, these mice tended to avoid water containing eggs, while control mice tended to prefer water sources containing eggs. They found that aversion to egg-shaped water sources lasted for months in susceptible mice.
The team then tested whether they could change the behavior of susceptible mice by manipulating immune system variables. For example, they found that mice allergic to eggs lost their aversion to the protein in their water if the immunoglobulin E (IgE) antibodies produced by the immune system were blocked. IgE antibodies trigger the release of mast cells, a type of white blood cell that, along with other immune system proteins, plays a critical role in communicating with areas of the brain that control disgust behavior. Without IgE as the initiator, information transfer was disrupted so that the mice could no longer escape the allergen.
Medzhitov said the findings show how the immune system evolved to help animals avoid dangerous ecological environments. He added that understanding how the immune system remembers potential dangers could one day help suppress extreme reactions to many allergens and other pathogens. Source
Source: Port Altele
