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. 2022 Oct;38(10):1271-1273.
doi: 10.1007/s12264-022-00911-z. Epub 2022 Jun 28.

Insula and the Immune System: More than mere Co-existence?

Panagiotis Kerezoudis  1 , Charles L Howe  2 , Long-Jun Wu  2 , Brian N Lundstrom  2 , Jamie J Van Gompel  3
Affiliations

Insula and the Immune System: More than mere Co-existence?

Panagiotis Kerezoudis et al. Neurosci Bull. 2022 Oct.
No abstract available

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Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Summary of our proposed model of the interaction between the insula and the immune system based on available evidence. Information flows from peripheral organs through vagal and spinothalamic afferent fibers to the nucleus of the solitary tract, the thalamus, and the posterior insula. The posterior insula projects information to the anterior insula. In addition, the insula has bidirectional connections with the prefrontal/orbitofrontal cortex, the cingulate gyrus (primarily the anterior and to a lesser extent the medial subregion), the inferior parietal lobe, andds the basal ganglia. In this way, the insula integrates inputs from the peripheral immune system as well as brain regions involved in emotion, motivation, incentive, and visceral sensation. The anterior insula then projects back to the dorsal motor nucleus of the vagus nerve and the rostral ventrolateral medulla, and possibly directly to the immune cells in the periphery, stimulating the inflammatory response, e.g., monocytes, granulocytes, and natural killer cells. (part of this figure is modified from an open-source image, under the Creative Commons License, Attribution-ShareAlike 2.1 Japan, CC BY-SA 2.1 JP, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.1/jp/deed.en)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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