Bhussry Seminar Series Featuring Mark D. Okusa, MD
Presentation: Neuroimmunoregulatory Control of Inflammation in Acute Kidney Injury
Speaker: Mark D. Okusa, MD
John C. Buchanan Distinguished Professor of Medicine
University of Virginia
Abstract:
The nervous and immune systems have long been studied independently, however over the last few decades considerable advances have been made that indicate these two systems are linked to maintain normal homeostasis as well to respond to stress and pathophysiological disorders. Recent advances have identified neural pathways that regulate immunity and inflammation via the inflammatory reflex pathway, identifying specific molecular targets that can be modulated by stimulating neurons electrically. Neuroimmunomodulation by non-pharmacological methods is emerging as a novel therapeutic strategy against inflammatory diseases including kidney disease. For example, electrical stimulation of vagus neurons or treatment with pulsed therapeutic ultrasound activates the cholinergic anti-inflammatory pathway and protects mice from acute kidney injury. Direct innervation of the kidney, including afferent and efferent neurons, may play a role in modulating and responding to inflammation in various diseases either locally or by providing feedback to regions of the central nervous system that are important in the inflammatory reflex pathway. Optogenetic tools that enable selective stimulation of specific neurons have uncovered neural circuits in the brain that modulate kidney function via activation of the cholinergic anti-inflammatory pathway, and these techniques will be valuable in dissecting other neural pathways that control immunity and inflammation. This talk will highlight studies that define neural circuits that control inflammation and that may serve as targets for therapy of kidney diseases such as acute kidney injury, kidney fibrosis and hypertension.
Sponsored by the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular & Cellular Biology