Understanding how our brain signals us to avoid certain allergic foods

Researchers from Yale University in the US showed that the immune system recognizes allergens and pathogens in the environment and allows the brain to take defensive measures such as exposure. The same avoidance behavior is displayed by people who develop food poisoning after eating a certain food.

The study, published in the journal Nature, showed that without immune system communication, the brain does not warn the body about potential threats in the environment and does not try to avoid those threats.

Ruslan Medzhitov, professor of immunobiology at Yale School of Medicine, said, “We have found that immune recognition controls behavior, specifically defensive behavior against toxins that are first transmitted through antibodies and then to our brain. ”

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A team in the Medzhitov lab, led by Esther Florsheim, then a postdoctoral researcher at Yale and now an assistant professor at Arizona State University, and Nathaniel Bachtel, a graduate student in the School of Medicine,

The team studied mice that had been sensitized to be allergic to ova, a protein found in chicken eggs. As expected, these mice tended to avoid water containing oviparous, whereas control mice tended to prefer water sources containing oviparous. The aversion to oviparous water sources in sensitized mice persisted for months.

The team then investigated whether they could change the behavior of the sensitive mice by manipulating immune system variables.

For example, they found that if the immunoglobulin E (IgE) antibodies produced by the immune system were blocked, mice allergic to ova lost their aversion to the protein in their water.

The IgE antibodies trigger the release of mast cells, a type of white blood cell that, along with other immune system proteins, play a key role in communicating with areas of the brain that control disgust behavior.

Without IgE as the initiator, the transmission of information was disrupted, so that the mice could no longer survive the allergy.
Medzhitov said the findings show how the immune system evolved to help animals avoid dangerous ecological areas.

Understanding how the immune system remembers potential threats may one day help suppress excessive responses to many allergens and other pathogens, he said.