On the development of psychoneuroimmunology

Abstract

Psychoneuroimmunology, the study of interactions among behavioral, neural and endocrine, and immune processes, coalesced as an interdisciplinary field of study in the late 1970s. Some of the early research that was critical in establishing neuroanatomical, neurochemical and neuroendocrine pathways and functional relationships between the brain and the immune system is outlined here. These and subsequent studies have led to the general acknowledgment that the nervous and immune systems are components of an integrated system of adaptive processes, and that immunoregulatory processes can no longer be studied as the independent activity of an autonomous immune system. This paradigm shift in the study of immunoregulatory processes and the elaboration of the mechanisms underlying behaviorally induced alterations of immune function promise a better understanding and a new appreciation of the multi-determined etiology of pathophysiological states.