Reviews & Analysis

Although the nervous and immune systems have been classically considered to modulate physiologically distinct functions, recent evidence points to coordinated activities during neurogenic inflammation. In this perspective, the authors examine the interactions between the peripheral nervous system and the immune response during health and disease.

Multiple sclerosis is a debilitating inflammatory demyelinating disease of the CNS. In this perspective, the author examines the strengths and weaknesses of the numerous animal models that are currently being used to analyze the pathogenesis of this disease with an eye toward the precise pathological aspect that each model recapitulates.

Neuropathic pain often results from trauma or insult to peripheral nerves. In this Perspective, the authors examine recent evidence that implicates the microglia-expressed purinergic receptor P2X4 in the induction of neuropathic pain and suggest that this pathway marks a spinal mechanism distinct from those that mediate acute or inflammatory pain.

In this perspective, the authors review new developments that suggest that many diseases share features with prion infections. They also highlight some of the critical open questions in prion biology, including how prions damage their hosts and how hosts attempt to neutralize invading prions.

Although the relationship between social factors and physical health outcomes is well-recognized, the modulatory role of neural processing in this link is less well understood. This perspective describes the way in which neurophysiological processes respond to social connection and disconnection to influence health outcomes.

This review discusses how social factors modulate risks for mental disorders, and the neural systems that implement this modulation.

In this perspective, the authors critically evaluate the research on the neural systems supporting empathy.

This perspective describes how neural oscillations are likely to play an important role in speech processing, particularly in creating a discrete neural code.