Immune System to Brain Signaling: Neuropsychopharmacological Implications

By L. Capuron, Andrew H. Miller. Pharmacology and Therapeutics, 2011

1,132 citations recorded by the source corpus.

There has been an explosion in our knowledge of the pathways and mechanisms by which the immune system can influence the brain and behavior. In the context of inflammation, pro-inflammatory cytokines can access the central nervous system and interact with a cytokine network in the brain to influence virtually every aspect of brain function relevant to behavior including neurotransmitter metabolism, neuroendocrine function, synaptic plasticity, and neurocircuits that regulate mood, motor activity, motivation, anxiety and alarm. Behavioral consequences of these effects of the immune system on the brain include depression, anxiety, fatigue, psychomotor slowing, anorexia, cognitive dysfunction and sleep impairment; symptoms that overlap with those which characterize neuropsychiatric disorders, especially depression. Pathways that appear to be especially important in immune system effects on the brain include the cytokine signaling molecules, p38 mitogen activated protein kinase and nuclear factor kappa B; indoleamine 2,3 dioxygenase and its down stream metabolites, kynurenine, quinolinic acid and kynurenic acid; the neurotransmitters, serotonin, dopamine and glutamate; and neurocircuits involving the basal ganglia and anterior cingulate cortex. A series of vulnerability factors including aging and obesity as well as chronic stress also appear to interact with immune to brain signaling to exacerbate immunologic contributions to neuropsychiatric disease. The elucidation of the mechanisms by which the immune system influences behavior yields a host of targets for potential therapeutic development as well as informing strategies for the prevention of neuropsychiatric disease in at risk populations.

Subfields: Behavioral Neuroscience, Biological Psychiatry, Neurology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/5346fe0c78bd989efc4398010b2dbb5335df1250

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Citations in the corpus

Anxiety and depression in COVID-19 survivors: Role of inflammatory and clinical predictors (2020, positive): “This approach could also allow to identify possible new specific targets for the treatment of inflammation-related neuropsychiatric conditions (Capuron and Miller, 2011).”
Inflammation: depression fans the flames and feasts on the heat. (2015, background): “Cytokines alter production, metabolism, and transport of neurotransmitters that synergistically affect mood, including dopamine, glutamate, and serotonin (21).”
From Stress to Inflammation and Major Depressive Disorder: A Social Signal Transduction Theory of Depression (2014, background): “…findings have already prompted an enormous amount of interest in the possibility of using anti-inflammatory agents to treat, and perhaps even prevent, depression (Capuron & Miller, 2011; Haroon, Raison, & Miller, 2012; Hayley, 2011; Li, Soczynska, & Kennedy, 2011; Rook, Raison, & Lowry, 2012).”
Role of pro-inflammatory cytokines released from microglia in Alzheimer's disease. (2015, background): “Indeed, Capuron and Miller (50) recently reviewed the pathways for the transport of pro-inflammatory cytokines to brain from systemic circulation.”
Sleep and immune function (2011, background): “(2) Some of these shared signals can cross the blood–brain barrier in both directions [18, 28].”
Cytokines in Sepsis: Potent Immunoregulators and Potential Therapeutic Targets—An Updated View (2013, background): “Moreover, increasing evidence has indicated that immune and inflammatory responses are tightly interwoven with different physiologic processes within the human host, such as coagulation [20], metabolism [21, 22], and neuroendocrine activation [23, 24].”
Short chain fatty acids: Microbial metabolites for gut-brain axis signalling. (2022, background): “…production has minimal impact on the CNS. Systemic infection though, can have a considerable impact on cognition and behaviour (Nutma et al., 2019; Cruz-Pereira et al., 2020), and the interaction of cytokines with neural processes can influence both mood and motivation (Capuron and Miller, 2011).”