Co-evolutionary analysis of the immune and nervous systems may reveal novel diagnosis and treatment options for mental health and neurodegenerative disorders

Theories regarding the co-evolution of the immune system and neuronal network have been discussed throughout science history, but only recently research has shown evidence of the immune system modulating the neuronal circuitry of social behavior directly. Targeting the communication of the two systems would be an important novel approach that holds the potential for discoveries and development of precise diagnosis and treatments, and possibly even prevention of illnesses such as Parkinson, Alzheimer, and autism. We hypothesize, that there are 3 ways for the system to be dysregulated in pathologies: 1) the neuronal network is mal-functioning by default and derails the immune system, 2) basically vice versa and both, 3) the immune system gets triggered too early too much or chronically (inflammation, pollution, stress, etc), which then leads to aberrations of the central nervous system and its behavioral responses, however, even in this scenario some organisms cope with chronic stressors, displaying resilience, and others don’t. We hypothesize, that downregulation or blockage of immune-neuronal network communication would be an important target for treatment or even prevention of various illnesses, including neurological and mental health disorders. We will discuss various mechanisms supporting this co-evolution hypothesis, including cytokines modulating behavior and neurotransmitters modifying immune responses, and novel targets that could be potentially utilized for novel treatment development. In the light of fast increasing rate of mental health and neurological illnesses, we need to establish the risk level in individuals for aberrant immune-neuronal system/communication-related disorders development, which will play an important role in sustaining stable public health and therefore also a steady economy. In the future, the development of novel screening and analyzing technology will lead to cost-effectiveness, enabling us to utilize these individualized preventive screenings as broadly applied tools.