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REVIEW article
Front. Immunol.
Sec. Multiple Sclerosis and Neuroimmunology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2025.1575917
This article is part of the Research TopicNeuro-Immune Crosstalk in Peripheral Neuropathy: From Mechanisms to Therapeutic OpportunitiesView all 4 articles
From Sensation to Regulation: The Diverse Functions of Peripheral Sensory nervous system
Provisionally accepted- 1Department of Anesthesiology, Second Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China
- 2Zhejiang Key Laboratory of Pain Perception and Neuromodulation, Hangzhou, Jiangsu Province, China
- 3State Key Laboratory of Transvascular Implantation Devices, Hangzhou, Jiangsu Province, China
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The peripheral sensory nervous system (PNS) has been widely recognized for its role in the collection, processing, and transmission of sensory information, including thermal, mechanical, chemical, and proprioceptive stimuli. In recent years, there has been a growing scholarly interest in the PNS attributable to its multiple physiological and pathophysiological non-sensory roles in the organs it innervates. The PNS exerts regulatory functions within the organs it innervates through direct interactions with local cells or through microbe-nerve-cell interactions that differ from the traditional feedback regulatory modes used by the hormonal and sensory brain-sympathetic/parasympathetic systems. The release of the neuropeptide calcitonin gene related peptide (CGRP) by nerves, through its action on CGRP receptors in peripheral cells, constitutes a primary molecular axis for PNS regulation of organ cells, maintaining tissue homeostasis, facilitating pathological processes, and modulating innate and adaptive immunity. This review highlights the non-sensory functions of the peripheral sensory nervous system in various tissues and organs, focusing on phenotypes, molecular mechanisms and their significance, while also exploring future research directions, methodologies and potential preclinical studies aimed at targeting these pathways for the development of novel therapies.
Keywords: peripheral sensory nervous system (PNS), sensory signal transduction, nonsensory regulatory functions, neuro-immune interaction, CGRP signaling pathway, microbe-nerve-cell crosstalk
Received: 13 Feb 2025; Accepted: 21 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Mei, Zhou, Zhong, Zheng, Deng, Yu and Jiang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Lina Yu, Department of Anesthesiology, Second Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China
Bao-Chun Jiang, Department of Anesthesiology, Second Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.