Role of spleen in prolonged anxiety after stress
New research details those connections, specifically that an abundance of white blood cells in the spleen could be sending messages to the brain that result in behavioral changes long after mice experience repeated stress. "We found that immune cells in the spleen can contribute to chronic anxiety following psychological stress," said Daniel McKim, a graduate student at The Ohio State University and the lead author of the study. "Our findings emphasize the possibility that the immune system represents a novel therapeutic target for the treatment of mental health conditions." The research was part of a series of related studies presented Nov. 13 in San Diego at Neuroscience 2016, the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience. McKim's co-authors and advisers, John Sheridan and Jonathan Godbout, are working toward explaining the complicated interplay between immunity and stress in animals that have experienced "repeated social defeat" in an...