The immunomodulatory effect of nerve growth factor.

A prolonged application of nerve growth factor (NGF) to neonatal prepuberal rats induced selective hypertrophy and hyperfunction of ganglionic sympathetic neurons. This was accompanied by higher density and fluorescence intensity of varicose adrenergic fibers and terminals in the immunocompetent organs, total increase of catecholamines in them, catecholamine diffusion into the intercellular space, and their accumulation by macrophages and mast cells. The plaque-forming and lymphocyte blast transformation responses were activated, signs of increased lymphocyte migration to peripheral lymphoid tissues appeared, and histamine concentration in the thymus and spleen increased.

[Correlation between brain lesion lateralization and immunologic indices in a model of experimental allergic encephalomyelitis].

The report contains new data, concerning checking of concepts of interdependence in the reaction development of humoral and cellular immunity from the lateralization of the affected hemisphere (Chuprikov, 1974). A comparative analysis of immunological indices in a local affections of different cortical zones detected that the influence of regulating mechanisms on the cortical level is accompanied by less expressed effects than on the behalf of the hypothalamo-limbic structures. The dominating influence of the left hemisphere was expressed on the development of humoral antibrain reactions while the right hemisphere demonstrated a prevalent influence on the development of reactions of a retarded type to normal and encephalitogenic antigens from the brain.