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How the nervous and immune systems communicate, using peptides and other signals, to regulate pain, itch, and inflammation.

TOPICS DISCUSSED:

• Nociception & Pathogens: Sensory neurons detect bacterial toxins within seconds, enabling rapid host-defense coordination ahead of immune-cell recruitment.
• CGRP & neutrophils: Nociceptor-release the peptide CGRP, which blocks neutrophil (immune cell) recruitment; pathogens exploit this in necrotizing fasciitis and meningitis.
• Pain sensitization: Inflammation can lower neuronal thresholds for pain, which sometimes becomes a chronic problem.
• Gut barrier protection: CGRP from gut nociceptors drives goblet-cell mucus secretion, supporting the protective “weep and sweep” response.
• Skin-to-gut allergy priming: Early skin exposure to allergens plus scratching may promote food allergies.
• Vagus nerve circuits: Distinct vagal sensory neurons selectively suppress TNF or induce IL-10, allowing precise inflammatory control.
• Brain inflammatory memory: Insular neurons encode site-specific immune responses that can later be recalled by reactivating those circuits. The brain remembers past inflammatory events.

ABOUT THE GUEST: Isaac Chiu, PhD is a professor in the Department of Immunology at Harvard Medical School. His lab studies nervous-immune system crosstalk in pain, itch, infection, and inflammatory disease.

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