Relationship between immune status and behavior has been studied in Medicine and should be studied also in Veterinarian Sciences.

Ivan Petrovich Pavlov demonstrated in 1890 and 1900 that there is an organic response to the arrival of information to the Central Nervous System (the sound of a metronome with a rhythm of 110 beats per minute caused salivation in trained dogs.). His students S. Metalnikov and V. Chorine demonstrated in 1928 that the response to a nervous stimulus can also take place in the Immune system of animals. These three researchers can be considered as precursors-founders of the psiconeuroimmunology.

This link between nervous system and organs implicates the existence of communication mechanisms between both.

Several scientists have studied this phenomenon, after the three mentioned both generally and in focused way to a particular organ. This is the reason because there are several studies published proposing different mechanisms of communication between Central Nervous System and the organs (including Immune system). We can summarize them in 4:

1) Anatomical link through a nervous net that arrives to the immune system, blood vessels, heart, lungs, intestine, kidney, reproductive organs, internal secretion glands, muscles and bones.

2) Anatomical link between different ganglia, especially those that forms the spinal cord, those from the chain of pairs of ganglia of the nervous system (see blog about brainstem) and the chain of pairs of lymphatic ganglia from the lumbo-aortic chain that, phylogenetically both come from a single chain of ring-shape pair of ganglia of the primitive marine annelids.

3) The presence of the same peptides receptors, in cell membranes of brain and immune system, consequence of the same phylogenetic origin of these cells.

4) Secreting chemical informers between nervous system, especially between hipotalamus and adrenal system, with several chemical compounds (hormones, neurotransmitters, chemokins and cytokines).

These mechanisms of communication are bidirectionals, so that nervous system influences in immune status and, at the same time, immune status influences in nervous system and, therefore, in the behavior of animals and human beings.

Consequently, psiconeuroimmunology applied to veterinary science is crucial for understanding immune mechanisms, on respect of breeding methods and the effect of genetic selection on the balance of animal’s body development, and to design further managing methods for animals to reinforce their immune system, and improve the organic response and, with both, obtain more aliments with better quality.