This Research Topic is part of the “Beyond the Borders: The Gates and Fences of Neuroimmune Interaction” series.

Beyond the Borders: The Gates and Fences of Neuroimmune Interaction

Neuroimmunology is a rapidly growing field in which two old sciences have converged to integrate two different types of responses into a single coherent response involving the coordinated action of both systems, neural and immune. For a long time, it was thought that both systems worked separately and in divergent pathways. The brain was considered an immunoprivileged site and the immune organs were deemed as independent of any neural influence and of nervous innervation. Time has passed and has proven that the borders between both systems were merely artificial. Since the beginning of Neuroimmunology in the 1980s much work has been done to elucidate the gates and fences in neuro-immune interactions. The brain was shown to be under the continuous surveillance of the immune system, even under basal physiological conditions in the absence of any pathology. Likely, it was found a profuse nervous innervation of lymphoid organs and even of single immune cells.

Gates for direct neural-immune communication were found both centrally and peripherally. Centrally, the gates, but also the fences, were situated at the brain barriers, the blood-brain barrier, and the blood-cerebrospinal fluid barrier, and at the circumventricular organs. Peripherally, the fences constituted the apparent diverse nature of molecules involved in neural and immune signalling; however, time proved that both systems were capable of producing the same signalling molecules and also systematically responding to the molecules released by the other system. Therefore, the gates were open for direct neural-immune communication at the peripheral level.

This Research Topic aims to include original reports, reviews, and technical reports regarding the description of the gates and fences in neural immune interactions. We intend to provide an extensive view of the mechanisms governing central and peripheral neural-immune interactions, including the role of extracellular vesicles in neuroimmune communication, the neuroimmune cell units and neural immune interactomics. We also aim to fully review the role of the borders, the blood-neural barriers, in the regulation of the neural-immune communication.

Impact

Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience