Insular cortex neurons encode and retrieve specific immune responses.

Increasing evidence indicates that the brain regulates peripheral immunity, yet whether and how the brain represents the state of the immune system remains unclear. Here, we show that the brain's insular cortex (InsCtx) stores immune-related information. Using activity-dependent cell labeling in mice (Fos), we captured neuronal ensembles in the InsCtx that were active under two different inflammatory conditions (dextran sulfate sodium [DSS]-induced colitis and zymosan-induced peritonitis).

Something Else to Stress about: Perinatal Stress Attenuates CD8 T Cell Activity in Adults.

Early-life stress has adverse health effects, but the underlying mechanisms are unclear. Hong et al. demonstrate that perinatal exposure to glucocorticoids in mice reprograms the neuroendocrine stress pathway.

Impaired wound healing: facts and hypotheses for multi-professional considerations in predictive, preventive and personalised medicine.

Whereas the physiologic wound healing (WH) successfully proceeds through the clearly defined sequence of the individual phases of wound healing, chronic non-healing wounds/ulcers fail to complete the individual stages and the entire healing process. There are many risk factors both modifiable (such as stress, smoking, inappropriate alcohol consumption, malnutrition, obesity, diabetes, cardio-vascular disease, etc.) and non-modifiable (such as genetic diseases and ageing) strongly contributing to the impaired WH.