Nociceptor neurons play a crucial role in maintaining the body's homeostasis by detecting and responding to potential environmental dangers. However, this function can be detrimental during allergic reactions, as vagal nociceptors contribute to immune cell infiltration, bronchial hypersensitivity, and mucus imbalance in addition to causing pain and coughing. Despite this, the specific mechanisms by which nociceptors acquire pro-inflammatory characteristics during allergic reactions are not yet fully understood.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe immune and sensory nervous systems, having evolved together, use a shared language of receptors and transmitters to maintain homeostasis by responding to external and internal disruptions. Although beneficial in many cases, neurons can exacerbate inflammation during allergic reactions, such as asthma. Our research modeled asthma aggravated by pollution, exposing mice to ambient PM particles and ovalbumin.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFVagal sensory neurons convey sensations from internal organs along the vagus nerve to the brainstem. Pruriceptors are a subtype of neurons that transmit itch and induce pruritus. Despite extensive research on the molecular mechanisms of itch, studies focusing on pruriceptors in the vagal ganglia still need to be explored.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAlthough air pollutants such as fine particulate matter (PM2.5) are associated with acute and chronic lung inflammation, the etiology of PM2.5-induced airway inflammation remains poorly understood.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInternal organs, including the airway, are innervated by neurons of the autonomic and sensory nervous systems. The airway-innervating sensory neurons primarily originate from the vagus nerve, whose cell bodies are found, in rodents, in the jugular and nodose ganglia complex (JNC). About half of these sensory neurons expressed the heat-sensing ion channel TRPV1 and evolved to limit tissue damage by detecting chemical, mechanical, or thermal threats and to initiate protective airway reflexes such as coughing and bronchoconstriction.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNociceptors, the high-threshold primary sensory neurons that trigger pain, interact with immune cells in the periphery to modulate innate immune responses. Whether they also participate in adaptive and humoral immunity is, however, not known. In this study, we probed if nociceptors have a role in distinct airway and skin models of allergic inflammation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Lung nociceptor neurons amplify immune cell activity and mucus metaplasia in response to an inhaled allergen challenge in sensitized mice.
Objective: We sought to identify the cellular mechanisms by which these sensory neurons are activated subsequent to allergen exposure.
Methods: We used calcium microscopy and electrophysiologic recording to assess whether vagal neurons directly respond to the model allergen ovalbumin (OVA).
Airway sensory neuron-produced Substance P heightens allergy-induced goblet cell hyperplasia and hypersecretion of Muc5AC, electrically silencing these overreactive neurons reduced these components of lung type 2 allergic inflammatory response.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDiabetes is a common condition characterized by persistent hyperglycemia. High blood sugar primarily affects cells that have a limited capacity to regulate their glucose intake. These cells include capillary endothelial cells in the retina, mesangial cells in the renal glomerulus, Schwann cells, and neurons of the peripheral and central nervous systems.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe investigated the anti-aging effects of Ludwigia octovalvis (Jacq.) P. H.
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