After reading more on stress and inflammation in the immune response I came across the term Psychoneuroimmunology which describes the relationship between the brain and the immune system. We had read a few lay articles on stress, particularly the study on how social stresses exacerbated the symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis. There is actually an organization committed to this specific field called the Psychoneuroimmunology Research Society and I have included their website below. Also, it seems that may medical schools and health care facilities have specific research units dedicated to this field. I have posted another paper on the concerns and difficulties that are involved in the field including measurement of psychological parameters and the effect of the environment on a subject.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoneuroimmunology
http://www.apa.org/monitor/dec01/anewtake.aspx
pni.osumc.edu/KG%20Publications%20(pdf)/049.pdf
Thanks for posting this article, it was really interesting to read! I think that sometimes we tend to forget that health and illness can not be entirely explained by biological factors but instead are a consequence of the interplay of biological, psychological, and social factors. I have also been learning similar information from this article in my health psychology class regarding stress, and how chronic stress can literally makes us sick by causing or intensifying a variety of physical and mental afflictions such as depression, ulcers, and heart disease. What I also found interesting in the article was how we have a bidirectional immune-to-brain circuit such that if we block signals from the immune system to the brain we don’t set off a sickness response after infection, but if administer cytokines to the brain, we show signs of infections even when no infection exists.
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