title: The Regulation of Immunological Processes by Peripheral Neurons in Homeostasis and Disease.
abstract: The nervous system and the immune system are the principal sensory interfaces between the internal and external environment. They are responsible for recognizing, integrating, and responding to varied stimuli, and have the capacity to form memories of these encounters leading to learned or 'adaptive' future responses. We review current understanding of the cross-regulation between these systems. The autonomic and somatosensory nervous systems regulate both the development and deployment of immune cells, with broad functions that impact on hematopoiesis as well as on priming, migration, and cytokine production. In turn, specific immune cell subsets contribute to homeostatic neural circuits such as those controlling metabolism, hypertension, and the inflammatory reflex. We examine the contribution of the somatosensory system to autoimmune, autoinflammatory, allergic, and infectious processes in barrier tissues and, in this context, discuss opportunities for therapeutic manipulation of neuro-immune interactions.
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology and Immunobiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
authors.forename: Jose
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ordovas-Montanes
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology and Immunobiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA; Department of Medicine, Boston Children's Hospital, and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
authors.forename: Seth
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Rakoff-Nahoum
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology and Immunobiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
authors.forename: Siyi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: Department of Immunology, Genentech, South San Francisco, CA 94080, USA.
authors.forename: Lorena
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Riol-Blanco
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology and Immunobiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
authors.forename: Olga
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Barreiro
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology and Immunobiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA; Ragon Institute of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. Electronic address: uva@hms.harvard.edu.
authors.forename: Ulrich H
authors.initials: UH
authors.lastname: von Andrian
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D006706:Homeostasis; D006801:Humans; D007107:Immune System / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology; D015213:Neuroimmunomodulation; D009474:Neurons / Q000378:metabolism*; D017933:Peripheral Nervous System / Q000276:immunology* / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000502:physiology; D015398:Signal Transduction
keywords: Neuroscience; barrier tissues; homeostasis; immunology