Feinstein Institutes scientists discover how the nervous system encodes immune signals in the body through the vagus nerve

The findings were published in Nature Communications

MANHASSET, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Inflammation is the body’s response to injury and infection. To better understand how the body’s nerves and neurons detect inflammation, researchers at Northwell Health’s Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research have shown how vagus nerve immune signals are encoded and communicated to the brain and how inflammation caused by conditions like colitis can disrupt this neuro-immune signaling.

The study, led by Eric H. Chang, PhD, associate professor in the Institute of Bioelectronic Medicine at the Feinstein Institutes, and published this week in Nature Communications, focuses on sensory neurons of the vagus nerve, a major communication pathway between the body and the brain. The researchers used advanced calcium imaging techniques to observe the activity of individual sensory neurons within the nodose ganglion, a cluster of nerve cells that forms part of the vagus nerve. They found that different inflammatory signals, called cytokines, activate distinct patterns of neural activity in individual neurons. Some neurons respond selectively to only one cytokine, while others respond to multiple cytokines but maintain the unique cytokine-specific activity signatures. While it was previously known that cytokines are released in the body during inflammation, how the nervous system detects and represents these immune signals was unclear.

“This research unveils a previously unrecognized complexity in how sensory neurons in the peripheral nervous system of the body communicate immune signals to the brain,” said Dr. Chang. “It provides insights about the precise neural mechanisms used to encode immune information, offering potential new avenues to diagnose and treat disorders of the neuro-immune axis.”

The researchers also discovered that inflammation caused by colitis alters the activity of these sensory neurons. Inflammation increases the baseline activity of these neurons but reduces their ability to respond precisely to specific cytokines. In other words, inflammation “scrambles” the neuro-immune nerve signals, potentially disrupting how the brain regulates the immune response and contributing to conditions such as autoimmune disease and chronic inflammatory disorders.

“The brain controls the amount of inflammation in the body, and nerves in the body inform the brain about the extent of inflammation,” said Kevin J. Tracey, MD, president and CEO of the Feinstein Institutes and Karches Family Distinguished Chair in Medical Research. “The discoveries in this important paper reveal how the vagus nerve transmits specific electrical signals to the brain about inflammation in a gut-vagus-brain axis.”

The Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research is the global scientific home of bioelectronic medicine, which combines molecular medicine, neuroscience and biomedical engineering. At the Feinstein Institutes, medical researchers use modern technology to develop new device-based therapies to treat disease and injury.

Building on years of research in molecular disease mechanisms and the link between the nervous and immune systems, Feinstein Institutes’ researchers discovered neural targets that can be activated or inhibited with neuromodulation devices, like vagus nerve implants, to control the body's immune response and inflammation. If inflammation is successfully controlled, diseases – such as arthritis, pulmonary hypertension, heart failure, inflammatory bowel diseases, diabetes, cancer and autoimmune diseases – can be treated more effectively.

Beyond inflammation, using novel brain-computer interfaces, Feinstein Institutes' researchers developed techniques to bypass injuries of the nervous system so that people living with paralysis can regain sensation and use their limbs. By producing bioelectronic medicine knowledge, disease and injury could one day be treated with our own nerves without costly and potentially harmful pharmaceuticals.

About the Feinstein Institutes
The Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research is the home of the research institutes of Northwell Health, the largest health care provider and private employer in New York State. Encompassing 50+ research labs, 3,000 clinical research studies and 5,000 researchers and staff, the Feinstein Institutes raises the standard of medical innovation through its six institutes of behavioral science, bioelectronic medicine, cancer, health system science, molecular medicine, and translational research. We are the global scientific leader in bioelectronic medicine – an innovative field of science that has the potential to revolutionize medicine. The Feinstein Institutes publishes two open-access, international peer-reviewed journals Molecular Medicine and Bioelectronic Medicine. Through the Elmezzi Graduate School of Molecular Medicine, we offer an accelerated PhD program. For more information about how we produce knowledge to cure disease, visit http://feinstein.northwell.edu and follow us on LinkedIn.