title: Through the Immune Looking Glass: A Model for Brain Memory Strategies.
abstract: The immune system (IS) and the central nervous system (CNS) are complex cognitive networks involved in defining the identity (self) of the individual through recognition and memory processes that enable one to anticipate responses to stimuli. Brain memory has traditionally been classified as either implicit or explicit on psychological and anatomical grounds, with reminiscences of the evolutionarily-based innate-adaptive IS responses. Beyond the multineuronal networks of the CNS, we propose a theoretical model of brain memory integrating the CNS as a whole. This is achieved by analogical reasoning between the operational rules of recognition and memory processes in both systems, coupled to an evolutionary analysis. In this new model, the hippocampus is no longer specifically ascribed to explicit memory but rather it both becomes part of the innate (implicit) memory system and tightly controls the explicit memory system. Alike the antigen presenting cells for the IS, the hippocampus would integrate transient and pseudo-specific (i.e., danger-fear) memories and would drive the formation of long-term and highly specific or explicit memories (i.e., the taste of the Proust's madeleine cake) by the more complex and recent, evolutionarily speaking, neocortex. Experimental and clinical evidence is provided to support the model. We believe that the singularity of this model's approximation could help to gain a better understanding of the mechanisms operating in brain memory strategies from a large-scale network perspective.
authors: Department of Clinical Immunology and Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria San Carlos (IdISSC), Hospital Clínico San CarlosMadrid, Spain; Department of Microbiology I, Complutense University School of MedicineMadrid, Spain.
authors: Silvia
authors: S
authors: Sánchez-Ramón
authors: Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale U932, Institut Curie Paris, France.
authors: Florence
authors: F
authors: Faure
keywords: central nervous system; hippocampus; immune system; implicit and explicit memory; innate and adaptive memory; recognition; trained immunity