In article <375FD401.DFBFA790 at tc.umn.edu>, Alan J. Robinson
[snip]
>> My own model has acute trauma resulting from an unsuccessful
> predator-prey interaction as being one of the most powerful evolutionary
> forces, and encompassing many different survival mechanisms in the brain
> and the body - there is the intense sympathetic arousal with pain and
> immune system suppression during the chase, followed by the wounded prey
> in a parasympathetic state of physical depression resting and
> recuperating in its burrow, with a limb almost torn off and extensive
> blood loss.
>> Much disease results from these survival mechanisms becoming
> dysregulated. e.g. the autoimmune diseases. The dysregulation occurs
> at least initially in the brain, rendering invalid the current sharp
> distinction between psychiatric and medical disease.
>[snip]
It may be that there are neurological effects on autoimmune diseases but I
would beg to suggest that there is far more evidence for involvement of
easily identifiable immunological factors.
For example in the non obese diabetic mouse a large number of genetic loci
and factors have been identified which contribute to the onset of diabetes
[eg MHC, cytokine expression, T-cell subsets, infections, hormones].
Some of these seem to interact with the 'environment'. Thus mice kept in
clean conditions are more likely to develope diabetes than mice exposed to
infections. Indeed it is possible to protect NOD mice by vaccination
against specific pathogens. Equally just the simple introduction of an MHC
transgene protects NOD mice.
In your example of acute trauma above it would be very hard to distinguish
effects which might be due to neurological changes from those due to simple
physical damage and infection. In the absence of a simple experimental
approach which could be used to distinguish the two types of effect it
seems best to me to adopt the hypothesis for which there is the most
experimental evidence.
Mike Clark, <URL:http://www.path.cam.ac.uk/~mrc7/>
--
o/ \\ // || ,_ o M.R. Clark, PhD. Division of Immunology
<\__,\\ // __o || / /\, Cambridge University, Dept. Pathology
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