Bioelectronic Medicine for a healthier future
Breakthrough bioelectronic medicine discovery made by decoding immune system’s neural signals
Researchers publish analysis about link between neuroscience and immunity bioelectronic medicine.
Northwell Health’s Feinstein Institute for Medical Research Assistant Professor Theodoros P. Zanos, PhD, and his collaborators are the first to decode specific signals the nervous system uses to communicate immune status and inflammation to the brain. Identifying these neural signals and what they’re communicating about the body’s health is a major step forward for bioelectronic medicine as it provides insight into diagnostic and therapeutic targets, and device development. These findings were published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
It was already known that the vagus nerve, a nerve in the neck, controls the release of molecules called cytokines, which promote inflammation in many disease conditions. However, up until now, it was unknown if each type of cytokine was sending its own specific information about inflammation and immunity to the brain. In Dr. Zanos’ study, he successfully decoded the neural signaling of two cytokines – IL-1β and TNF – in the vagus nerve of mice and found that each cytokine triggered their own specific response signal.
“These results show that it is possible to detect specific cytokine signaling from the body’s receptors to the brain, through electrical signals in the vagus nerve,” said Dr. Zanos, lead author of the PNAS paper. “We will now use the neural decoding methods from this study to identify the neural signaling of a variety of medical conditions in future bioelectronic medicine studies. This is a key step to provide insights to engineer cutting-edge diagnostic and therapeutic devices.”
Bioelectronic medicine is an emerging field of medicine which combines neuroscience, molecular biology and bioengineering to tap into the nervous system to treat disease and injury without the use of pharmaceuticals. Conditions identified as benefitting from bioelectronic medicine therapies include rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease, diabetes, paralysis and lupus.
“Dr. Zanos’ findings are a major discovery in the field of bioelectronic medicine,” said Kevin J. Tracey, MD, president and CEO of the Feinstein Institute. “We have long known that the nervous system communicates with the body. We can now learn the language by which it communicates, which enables us to fine tune how we help the body heal itself.”
“Inflammation is a locally protective response to infection or injury. Health is established when the magnitude and duration of inflammatory responses are controlled precisely; because when it is either excessive or insufficient the viability of the host is compromised. Vertebrates have two systems that can establish memory: the nervous system and the immune system. In the inflammatory reflex, a prototypical model of interaction between these two systems, signals propagating in vagus nerve axons control inflammatory responses in the spleen and other body organs. The underlying anatomic, neurophysiological, and molecular mechanisms expand our understanding of how the nervous system modulates the immune system. And provides a new opportunity to use bioelectronic devices targeting reflex neural circuits to treat inflammatory diseases in successful clinical trials.”
Kevn J Tracy MD
About the Feinstein Institute
About the Feinstein Institute
The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research is the research arm of Northwell Health, the largest healthcare provider in New York. Home to 50 research laboratories and to clinical research throughout dozens of hospitals and outpatient facilities, the Feinstein Institute includes 4,000 researchers and staff who are making breakthroughs in molecular medicine, genetics, oncology, brain research, mental health, autoimmunity, and bioelectronic medicine – a new field of science that has the potential to revolutionize medicine. For more information about how we empower imagination and pioneer discovery, visit FeinsteinInstitute.org.
About Kevin J. Tracey MD
Kevin J. Tracey is president of The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, and professor of Molecular Medicine and Neurosurgery at the Hofstra Northwell School of Medicine. He is a leader in the study of the molecular basis of inflammation. He and his colleagues identified the neural mechanism for controlling the immunological responses to infection and injury, and developed devices to replace anti-inflammatory drugs in clinical trials of rheumatoid arthritis, a new field termed bioelectronic medicine. The recipient of numerous awards and honors, including an honorary degree from the Karolinska Institute, Dr. Tracey is a fellow in the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a member in the American Society for Clinical Investigation, and the Association of American Physicians. He is co-founder and Councilor of the Global Sepsis Alliance.
Professor Tracey graduated summa cum laude from Boston College, majoring in chemistry, and received his MD from Boston University. He trained in neurosurgery at the New York Hospital/Cornell University Medical Center, and was guest investigator at The Rockefeller University. Since 1992 he has directed the Laboratory of Biomedical Science in Manhasset, NY, where in 2005 he was appointed president of the Feinstein Institute. Dr. Tracey delivers lectures nationally and internationally on inflammation, sepsis, the neuroscience of immunity, and bioelectronic medicine. He is the author of Fatal Sequence (Dana Press) and more than 320 scientific papers.
