Immune modulation alters brain opioid activities: Evidence for a role of muramyl dipeptide in the process of neuroimmunemodulation
Abstract
During the last twenty years a scientific basis for the anecdotal reports of an interaction between the brain and the immune system has established neuroimmunemodulation as a new field of study in the biomedical sciences. A means for the brain to exert a regulatory influence upon various lymphoid reactions has been well established by many investigators world wide. This dissertation was geared to test the central hypothesis that the immune system, in turn, produces signals which affect CNS functions. Specifically, it is shown through several different experiments, behavioral and electrophysiologic, that the immune modifiers interferon-alpha, gamma irradiation, cyclosporine-A and muramyl-dipeptide modify brain opioid related activities. Each agent attenuates naloxone-precipitated morphine withdrawal following either systemic or intracranial injection. Each agent also has effects upon either the acute antinociceptive or hypothermic activities of morphine. Finally, each agent modifies baseline evoked electrical activity of several brain areas of awake freely-behaving rats. Later studies demonstrate that muramyl-dipeptide modifies the unit firing rate of single neurons in the brain following either systemic or localized administration within the brain. These results suggest that the immune system produces signals which affect brain activity; and thus, support the contention of a bi-directional interaction between the brain and the immune system.
Subject Area
Biology
Recommended Citation
Dougherty, Patrick Michael, "Immune modulation alters brain opioid activities: Evidence for a role of muramyl dipeptide in the process of neuroimmunemodulation" (1988). Texas Medical Center Dissertations (via ProQuest). AAI8826297.
https://digitalcommons.library.tmc.edu/dissertations/AAI8826297