The immune system also manages your social interactions
Spending time with friends, acquaintances, and family is experienced as pleasant by most people. It is not only enjoyable, but social connectedness also plays an important role in overall health and well-being.
New discovery
A new discovery by researchers at an American university shows that the immune system directly influences social behavior, because a physical connection has been found between the brain and the lymphatic system via meningeal vessels. Since this was previously unknown, it naturally raises fundamental questions about human behavior.
Influence of the immune system
Can a weak immune system, for example, contribute to an inability to have normal social interactions? The answer appears to be yes. This discovery may therefore have a major impact on the way healthcare professionals look at certain patient groups.
At first, it was thought that the brain and the adaptive immune system worked in isolation from each other. Now it turns out not only that they work closely together, but also that some of our character traits arise from our immune response to pathogens.
Outdated knowledge
Until a year ago, medical students were taught that the brain was shielded from the rest of the body by the blood-brain barrier. This barrier consists of special cells that selectively allow nutrients through and protect the brain from microbes. That view has now become outdated after the publication of the new findings.
More new discoveries
This observation is already the second fundamental revision in a short time regarding the functioning of the immune system. Participants in the Wim “The Iceman” Hof study showed that the autonomic immune system could also be consciously controlled through exposure to cold and a special breathing technique.
But the most recent indications also show that the immune and nervous systems are, as it were, the same system, because they use the same molecules and signaling pathways. The nervous system is heavily involved in all aspects of inflammation and is constantly sending information to immune cells.
Gut-brain connection
New ways of thinking are now emerging about the brain and its interactions with the immune system. This will probably lead to many more interesting discoveries in the future. Perhaps this will become just as interesting as the now well-known gut-brain axis, through which the intestines influence the brain via the vagus nerve, among other pathways.
Evolution
From an evolutionary perspective, the new discovery is easy to explain because social interactions are important for survival. The immune system develops during these interactions because it is exposed to pathogens. On the other hand, this is also essential for the viability of pathogens because it allows them to spread.
Historical perspective
At the beginning of the 20th century, the prevailing view was that children’s behavior was entirely learned. Parents were told that maternal affection posed a serious threat to health. Children’s hospitals were designed according to these new insights, with sterile covered cribs. The children were cared for with as little contact with the nurses as possible. Visits from parents were, of course, also not allowed. In orphanages, children were also discouraged from forming friendships with one another. The consequences were dramatic, and in some cases 90 percent of the children died within a year. Most often they died from childhood diseases such as measles or scarlet fever. No one realized that the children’s weak immune system was the problem….
