Encoding of inflammatory mediators by vagal sensory neurons

项目摘要 神经系统和免疫系统相互沟通以应对感染 维持免疫系统的稳定过去二十年的研究表明，迷走神经 神经是携带运动信号下行的神经免疫通讯的关键通路 除了感官信号上升到大脑之外，免疫介质的检测 在外周，如细胞因子，被认为是迷走神经介导的，但目前还不清楚如何感觉 神经元响应并在原位呈现该信息。拟议研究的目标是 发现迷走神经感觉神经元如何编码和代表特定的信息 炎症介质。这一新的理解将提供关键的机械见解， 免疫信号的神经系统表示，这可以用来了解 在一系列涉及免疫失调的炎症性疾病中是错误的。 我们有一个经验丰富的科学家团队，他们是免疫神经调节方面的专家， 将使用基因编码的钙指标来监测大群迷走神经感觉神经元， 同时它们对特定的炎症介质有反应。我们将使用所采用的技术和工具 来确定这些神经元是否使用群体来编码信息 用于表示信息免疫相关信息的代码或时间代码。

Project Summary The nervous system and immune system communicate with each other to respond to infections and maintain immune homeostasis. Work over the last two decades has shown that the vagus nerve is a critical pathway for neuro-immune communication carrying motor signals descending to the body, in addition to sensory signals ascending to the brain. Detection of immune mediators in the periphery, such as cytokines, is thought to be vagally-mediated but it is unclear how sensory neurons respond and represent this information in situ. The goal of the proposed studies is to discover how vagal sensory neurons encode and represent information about specific inflammatory mediators. This new understanding will provide crucial mechanistic insights into the nervous system representation of immune signals, which can be used to understand what goes wrong in a host of inflammatory disorders that involve immune dysregulation. With a team of experienced scientists who are experts in the neural regulation of immunity, we will use genetically encoded calcium indicators to monitor large groups of vagal sensory neurons while they respond to specific inflammatory mediators. We will use techniques and tools adopted from neuroscience to determine whether these neurons encode information using a population code or a temporal code for representing information immune-relevant information.