Where Would One Seek Links Between the Nervous and Immune Systems?

Abstract

We have been taught to think of the nervous system as a collection of isolated specialized input systems connected in the central nervous system to a collection of equally isolated and specialized output systems. The job of the neuroscientist is then to seek and identify pairs of compiled input-output pathways with the ambition and subtlety of a garage mechanic who looks in a new model car for the accelerator and the brake cables. While this is a reasonable start to analyze a complex system, we should have learnt by now that even man-made dynamic systems have long since given up rigid links in order to achieve control. We have turned instead to multiple feed-back powered loops which achieve a goal by a simultaneous adjustment of multiple inputanalysis-synthesis-output systems. The automatic course regulating pilot of an airplane may look simple once you understand it and realize that every component is part of a dynamic whole with a very large number of operating optional patterns. Even that realization does not take into account the evolution of the design and even less the origin of the processes which led to this automatic pilot having been set to navigate from specific start point A to end target point B.