Regulating innate immunity with dopamine and electroacupuncture

SS Chavan, KJ Tracey - Nature medicine, 2014 - nature.com
Nature medicine, 2014nature.com
Neural circuits are able to modulate immune responses by detecting inflammatory mediators
and relaying signals back to the immune system. Here, in a mouse model of sepsis, the
authors show that the immune responses can be modulated by electroacupuncture, which
stimulates a neural circuit that results in the release of dopamine. The mechanism, like the
inflammatory reflex, is neither sympathetic nor parasympathetic. Their results show a
potential way forward in developing therapies for sepsis in dopamine agonists (pages 291 …
Neural circuits are able to modulate immune responses by detecting inflammatory mediators and relaying signals back to the immune system. Here, in a mouse model of sepsis, the authors show that the immune responses can be modulated by electroacupuncture, which stimulates a neural circuit that results in the release of dopamine. The mechanism, like the inflammatory reflex, is neither sympathetic nor parasympathetic. Their results show a potential way forward in developing therapies for sepsis in dopamine agonists (pages 291–295).
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