The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and College of Medicine in Columbus received a $1.2 million grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation to probe whether the spinal cord has its own ability to detect infection and direct the body’s immune response.
The project is led by Phillip Popovich, PhD, professor and chair of neuroscience at Wexner, and is designed to challenge “the long-held view that the brain is the nervous system’s main controller of immunity,” according to a July 28 news release from the university.
“Our research suggests the spinal cord isn’t just a cable carrying messages up to the brain and back. It may have its own pathway for detecting infection and signaling the immune system without involving the brain,” Dr. Popovich said in the release. “If we’re right, it could change scientists’ understanding of how the nervous and immune systems work together and create new opportunities to treat inflammatory diseases.”
Researchers will use imaging technology, genetic methods and AI to identify spinal cord nerve pathways in genetically engineered mice and study how they influence immune responses.
The research will proceed in three stages: mapping spinal cord nerve cells that respond to infection or inflammation, using an AI-powered computer model to predict which nerve cells play the biggest role and activating or deactivating those nerve cells in mice to determine whether they directly affect immune responses and behavior, the release said.
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