The Immune Frontier in PsychiatryDecades in the making -- It is ready to take a starring role

Val's Take/Conjecture

• The journal Brain, Behavior and Immunity was started in 1987 by the Psychoneuroimmunology Research Society (PNIRS).
• The journal publishes peer-reviewed basic, experimental, and clinical studies dealing with behavioral, neural, endocrine, and immune system interactions in humans and animals.
• They were really on to something.

• It's starting to become relatively CLEAR how something like MATERNAL IMMUNE ACTIVATION could be a big factor in Neuro-Developmental and Psychiatric Disorders.

• "Inflammation" is a common term in the society and it's probably not going to be too long before "Maternal Immune Activation" is widely known even if people aren't familiar with all the complexity of that.

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​Low-dose interleukin-2 in patients with bipolar depression: A phase 2 randomised double-blind placebo-controlled trial (2025)

"This proof-of-concept trial shows that stimulating Tregs [Regulatory T cells] in patients with bipolar depression is safe and associated with clinical improvements.

​"This supports a pathophysiological role of inflammation in BD and warrants pursuing the evaluation of IL-2LD as an adjunct treatment of major mood disorders."

Influence of Immune System Abnormalities Caused by Maternal Immune Activation in the Postnatal Period (2023)

​"Exposure to maternal immune activation is a risk factor for neurodevelopmental disorders, psychosis, cardiovascular diseases, metabolic diseases, and human immune disorders.

"It has been associated with increased levels of proinflammatory cytokines transferred from mother to fetus in the prenatal period."

Understanding immune system dysfunction and its context in mood disorders: psychoneuroimmunoendocrinology and clinical interventions (2024)

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​Conventional and new immunotherapies for immune system dysregulation in postpartum mood disorders: comparisons to immune system dysregulations in bipolar disorder, major depression, and postpartum autoimmune thyroid disease (2025)

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​Cognitive disorders in patients with neuroimmunological disease (2025)

Summary: Autoimmune diseases should be considered as critical causal factors underlying new cases of neurocognitive disorder, especially in young patients.

These diseases are mediated by immune system reactions involving antibody production, T-cell-mediated damage, and demyelination.

Although the prognosis seems favourable in most conditions after immunotherapy, the magnitude of the therapeutic effect of immunotherapy on cognitive functioning remains unclear.

​​Chronological versus immunological aging: Immune rejuvenation to arrest cognitive decline (2025)

Abstract

The contemporary understanding that the immune response significantly supports higher brain functions has emphasized the notion that the brain's condition is linked in a complex manner to the state of the immune system.

It is therefore not surprising that immunity is a key factor in shaping brain aging. In this perspective article, we propose amending the Latin phrase "mens sana in corpore sano" ("a healthy mind in a healthy body") to "a healthy mind in a healthy immune system."

Briefly, we discuss the emerging understanding of the pivotal role of the immune system in supporting lifelong brain maintenance, how the aging of the immune system impacts the brain, and how the potential rejuvenation of the immune system could, in turn, help revitalize brain function, with the ultimate ambitious goal of developing an anti-aging immune therapy.