Brain-Immune Interactions in Health and Disease: Implications for
Susceptibility to Arthritis and Infectious Disease
Esther M. Sternberg
National Institute of Mental Health
2121 Meeting Abstract
Friday, October 20, 2000 at 8:15 p.m.
Abstract:
This lecture will outline scientific advances in understanding the
communication networks between the nervous and immune systems: the scientific
underpinning of the popular mind-body interaction. The idea that the mind and
negative or positive states of mind, such as psychological stress or
well-being, can influence health and disease has been in the popular culture
for thousands of years. Recent scientific advances prove that there is a
molecular, cellular, neuroanatomical and neurohormonal basis for communication
between the brain and the immune system. Through such communications the
nervous and immune systems interact and modify each other's functions.
Interruptions of this interaction, on a genetic, drug-induced or surgical
basis, lead to enhanced susceptibility to inflammatory disease. Over-activity
of the neuroendocrine component of these interactions, such as occurs during
stress, is associated with exacerbations of, or increased susceptibility to,
infectious disease. On the basis of such findings, new drug treatments are
currently being developed, such as the use of anti-inflammatory drugs in
Alzheimer's, anti-stress hormone drugs in arthritis or neurotransmitter related
drugs for improving immune responses associated with aging.
About the Author:
Esther Sternberg
received her M.D. degree and trained in Rheumatology at McGill University,
Montreal, Canada. She did post-doctoral training at Washington University,
Barnes Hospital, St. Louis, MO, in the Division of Allergy and Immunology. She
was subsequently a Howard Hughes Associate and Instructor in Medicine at
Washington University and Barnes Hospital, before joining the National
Institutes of Health in 1986. She is currently director of the Integrative
Neural-Immune Program and chief of the Section on Neuroendocrine Immunology and
Behavior, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health.
She is the author of
The Balance Within: The Science Connecting Emotions and Health (W.H. Freeman
and Company)
.
Find her book at Amazon.com:
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