Func Med Nation - A podcast for Functional and Integrative Medicine practitioners. · Dr. Steven Noseworthy

032 - GUEST SERIES: Drs. Melillo and Scire (Part 3): Immunoception - the Brain’s Role in Monitoring and Managing Immunology

·1 hr 17 min·4 clips

He argues that persistent leaky gut starts in the brainstem, not the gut.

1. Func Med Nation episode 032 centers on immunoception, the brain's role in monitoring and managing immunity. 2. Dr. Steve Noseworthy hosts Peter and Rob, and he frames them as clinicians whose prior interviews are already posted on Func Med Nation and The Inflammation Nation. 3. The episode asks why clinicians accept brain control of the gut and hormones but struggle to accept brain control of the immune system. 4. Steve opens with a 2018 Kevin Tracy quote from Annual Reviews in Immunology stating that "the nervous system regulates immunity and inflammation." 5. Peter says psychoneuroimmunology has existed for only about 30 to 40 years and names Richard Adler among the early researchers. 6. Rob says many clinicians still think the immune system works independently and only later affects the brain through inflammation. 7. Peter describes a paper on frogs and E. coli that he says found no macrophage differentiation when the brain was disconnected. 8. The discussion turns to toll-like receptors, cytokines, chemokines, and Kevin Tracy's idea of an immuno-homunculus. 9. Steve compares the missing neuroimmune side of his own clinical graphic with the more familiar neuroendocrine map. 10. The hosts contrast interoception with exteroception and focus on the brain's interface with internal and external environments. 11. Rob links interoception to newborn survival needs like pain, hunger, thirst, temperature, and feeding. 12. He places much of that early sensing in the right insula and right hemisphere. 13. Steve adds that blood sugar drops can trigger anxiety because the brain perceives the shift before the body response is obvious. 14. Peter defines immunoception as the brain's response to stereotypical immune signals from tissue damage or a pathogenic challenge. 15. He says the immune system has a learned choreography that recruits innate and adaptive cells in a predictable sequence. 16. Rob connects immune memory to the right hemisphere, the amygdala, and implicit body responses rather than factual recall. 17. He says embodied self-awareness, the insula, and the anterior cingulate help explain why autoimmunity reflects a failure to recognize self from other. 18. The interview has a technical, collegial tone, with Steve repeatedly steering the conversation toward clinical implications and developmental timing. 19. Clinicians working with autism, gut dysfunction, autoimmunity, or complex neuroimmune cases would likely get the most from this episode. 20. Listeners wanting a brief, non-technical overview without developmental neuroscience or immune terminology may skip it.

As heard by us

A clinical look at how laterality and immune behavior are being linked.

Immunosception reads as a clinical conversation that moves from laterality research into immune activation and inhibition, then into how those patterns may appear in young children with autoimmune-type presentations.

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Why you'd press play

You want a technical, clinically oriented conversation about immunosception and how brain laterality may shape immune response.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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