{"id":211488,"date":"2025-04-15T15:14:30","date_gmt":"2025-04-15T20:14:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/04\/scientists-discover-the-protein-il-17-that-fights-infection-also-acts-on-the-brain-inducing-anxiety-or-sociability"},"modified":"2025-04-15T15:14:30","modified_gmt":"2025-04-15T20:14:30","slug":"scientists-discover-the-protein-il-17-that-fights-infection-also-acts-on-the-brain-inducing-anxiety-or-sociability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/04\/scientists-discover-the-protein-il-17-that-fights-infection-also-acts-on-the-brain-inducing-anxiety-or-sociability","title":{"rendered":"Scientists discover the protein IL-17 that fights infection also acts on the brain, inducing anxiety or sociability"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/scientists-discover-the-protein-il-17-that-fights-infection-also-acts-on-the-brain-inducing-anxiety-or-sociability2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Immune molecules called cytokines play important roles in the body\u2019s defense against infection, helping to control inflammation and coordinating the responses of other immune cells. A growing body of evidence suggests that some of these molecules also influence the brain, leading to behavioral changes during illness.<\/p>\n<p>Two new studies from MIT and Harvard Medical School, focusing on a cytokine called IL-17, now add to that evidence. The researchers found that IL-17 acts on two distinct brain regions\u2014the amygdala and the somatosensory cortex\u2014to exert two divergent effects. In the amygdala, IL-17 can elicit feelings of anxiety, while in the cortex it promotes sociable behavior.<\/p>\n<p>These findings suggest that the immune and nervous systems are tightly interconnected, says Gloria Choi, an associate professor of brain and cognitive sciences, a member of MIT\u2019s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, and one of the senior authors of the studies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Immune molecules called cytokines play important roles in the body\u2019s defense against infection, helping to control inflammation and coordinating the responses of other immune cells. A growing body of evidence suggests that some of these molecules also influence the brain, leading to behavioral changes during illness. Two new studies from MIT and Harvard Medical School, [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":661,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-211488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/661"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211488\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}