CNS Immunity – Paradox of Maintenance, Repair and Destruction

CNS was primarily designated as an immune privileged site. However, last fifty years showed tremendous growth of understanding of immune functioning within brain. Though, Rio Hortega, a century ago, first described microglia as the resident immune cells of brain, the understanding of immune function in brain gained momentum only in last two decades of the last century. With the beginning of present century scientists were found aided with technologies of live imaging of cells in brain, and started to analyze them using next-gen technology of single-cell omics. They are now capable of selectively probing cells in brain or can develop 3D model of miniature brain in vitro and many more. All these technological advancements produce a lot of information on the immune components of brain and their functions which are directly or indirectly related to human ailments. Therefore, a research on contemporary information with a specific focus area or goal will be a much-required endeavor to understand the progress and its practical significance.

This Research Topic aims to collect a focus specific and goal-oriented information on recent advancements in basic research on neuroimmunology. From the beginning of this century, focus has been made on classical problems of neurodegenerative disorders, or neurovirology, or brain tumor immunology, or identifying the lineages of immune cells in brain, or blood-brain-barrier biology and peripheral-CNS immune cross-talk. But lately researchers shifted their focuses in some newer areas: finding the role of brain immunity in psychiatric disorders, function of CNS immune components in memory formation or retention, or involvement of neuroimmune components in higher order behavior and cognitive functions, in-depth analysis of evolutionary distribution pattern of brain immune cells, role of microbiota in shaping neuroimmune functions and many more. These are having significant impact in future understanding CNS function and in practice.

Present volume will be intended to accumulate the current information of these ground-breaking understanding on basic aspects of neuroimmune system and function. These are related to the housekeeping activities in CNS and their perturbations, which may have significant consequences in CNS health and disease. The areas of this volume will be focused on – how the CNS immune components communicate with peripheral immune axis, their spaciotemporal movements and functions during development, maturity and maintenance of CNS, their roles in higher order brain functions and disorders etc. Also, we may emphasize on how they can control and become controlled in perturbed conditions under pathogenic and non-pathogenic threats, or their role in neuro-endocrine function or whether they may have any interactions with microbiota etc.

This Research Topic accepts Original Research, Brief Research Report, Data Report, Case Report, Methods, Systemic Review, Mini-Review, Conceptual Analysis, Commentary and Opinion. We welcome manuscripts focusing on, but not limited to, the following sub-topics:

• Lineage and polarity of microglia and brain macrophage

• Spaciotemporal patterning of microglia in development and maturity

• Neuronal circuitry maintenance and immune cells

• Role of immune cells in memory formation and maintenance

• Neuroimmune components and cognitive functions

• Dynamic blood-brain-barrier as cross-road of peripheral to neuronal immunity

• Glioblastoma and neuroimmune cells – the Yin-Yang

• CNS autoimmunity – developmental intricacies of the disorder

• Microbiota and CNS immune cells – functional and developmental consequences

• CNS immunity and Neuro-endocrine function modulation

• Evolutionary cross-section of CNS immunity

Contributors are requested to develop their manuscript as per the thrust area of this theme. Topics, not mentioned in the focuses, but related to the theme may also be considered.
With this Research Topic, we hope to create an interesting collection of cutting-edge information contributing to the futuristic understanding of the whole system of immunity in brain

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Classification
• Clinical Trial
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• General Commentary
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Classification
• Clinical Trial
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Policy and Practice Reviews
• Review
• Study Protocol
• Systematic Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: CNS, Microglia, Macrophage, lymphocytes, Blood-brain-barrier, Neuroimmune, Neuronal circuitry, Cognition, Memory, Glioblastoma, Neuro-endocrine, CNS autoimmunity

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.