Is it possible for the brain to cause physical illness? Yes, according to a recent study.
A study conducted by researchers at the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology and published in the peer-reviewed Cell Journal last Monday found that the brain can cause symptoms and sometimes even disease on its own.
The researchers, M.D./Ph.D. student Tamar Koren and Associate Professor Asya Rolls of the Technion Ruth and Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, caused inflammation in lab mice and then triggered the brain cells that were active during the inflammation.
The researchers learned that the brain reacts to changes in the body by forming "representations of the immune system," though they noted in the study that they did not know how the brain does this.
The evidence of this phenomenon includes the fact that peripheral immune organs, including the lymph nodes and the spleen, transmit information about their immune status to the brain and it reacts to problems in these systems, as found in neural images showing increased activity in certain brain regions during inflammation. Furthermore, the study notes, "the immune system has been shown to respond to immune conditioning by associating a specific immune response... with an external cue... such that presentation of the cue alone can elicit the immune response."
“The body needs to respond to infection as quickly as possible before the attacking bacteria or viruses can multiply," Prof. Rolls said. If certain activity, for example consuming particular foods, has exposed the body to infection and inflammation once, there is an advantage to gearing up for battle when one is about to engage in the same activity again. A shorter response time would allow the body to defeat the infection faster and with less effort. The problem of course is when such an effective mechanism goes out of control and can on its own generate the disease.”
These findings could have broad implications for medical research on autoimmune diseases, such as psoriasis and Crohn's Disease, The Technion added.