Nervous about infection? The role of the nervous system in behavioural and cellular infection responses Event

Event details

The nervous system rapidly senses and responds to changes in an animal’s environment, including the presence of pathogens. The first neuronal response to the presence of pathogens in the environment is to alter the animals behaviour in order to avoid sources of infection. However the nervous system can also regulate cellular responses to infection. This communication between the nervous and immune systems may explain why environmental factors, such as psychological stress, alter our susceptibility to infections. In this talk I will describe our recent work using the nematode worm C. elegans to understand how the nervous system regulates pathogen avoidance behaviours and cellular responses to infection.