以色列理工学院Asya Rolls研究组发现，岛叶皮层神经元编码和检索特定的免疫反应。2021年11月8日，《细胞》杂志在线发表了这项成果。
研究人员表明大脑的岛叶皮层（InsCtx）储存着与免疫有关的信息。利用小鼠活动依赖性细胞标记（FosTRAP），研究人员捕获了InsCtx中在两种不同炎症条件下（葡聚糖硫酸钠[DSS]诱导的结肠炎和酵母聚糖诱导的腹膜炎）活跃的神经元集合。这些神经元组合的化学遗传重新激活足以广泛地检索这些神经元被捕获时的炎症状态。
因此，研究人员表明，大脑可以存储和检索特定的免疫反应，将免疫学记忆的经典概念扩展到炎症信息的神经元表征。
据介绍，越来越多的证据表明，大脑调节外周免疫力，但大脑是否以及如何代表免疫系统的状态仍不清楚。
附：英文原文
Title: Insular cortex neurons encode and retrieve specific immune responses
Author: Tamar Koren, Re’ee Yifa, Mariam Amer, Maria Krot, Nadia Boshnak, Tamar L. Ben-Shaanan, Hilla Azulay-Debby, Itay Zalayat, Eden Avishai, Haitham Hajjo, Maya Schiller, Hedva Haykin, Ben Korin, Dorit Farfara, Fahed Hakim, Oren Kobiler, Kobi Rosenblum, Asya Rolls
Issue&Volume: 2021-11-08
Abstract: Increasing evidence indicates that the brain regulates peripheral immunity, yet whetherand how the brain represents the state of the immune system remains unclear. Here,we show that the brain’s insular cortex (InsCtx) stores immune-related information.Using activity-dependent cell labeling in mice (FosTRAP), we captured neuronal ensembles in the InsCtx that were active under two differentinflammatory conditions (dextran sulfate sodium [DSS]-induced colitis and zymosan-inducedperitonitis). Chemogenetic reactivation of these neuronal ensembles was sufficientto broadly retrieve the inflammatory state under which these neurons were captured.Thus, we show that the brain can store and retrieve specific immune responses, extendingthe classical concept of immunological memory to neuronal representations of inflammatoryinformation.
DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2021.10.013
Source: https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(21)01223-X