Extreme environments — such as high altitudes, extreme temperatures (intense cold or scorching heat), hypoxia, microgravity, high pressures, deserts, polar environments, and even outer space — pose unique physiological challenges. In these contexts, the immune system, which is highly sensitive to tissue and cellular stressors, can suffer dysfunctions, compensatory adaptations, or even permanent alterations. In addition, pharmacological or non-pharmacological interventions, such as physical training, nutritional supplementation, progressive acclimatization, and psychosocial strategies can modulate these responses, highlighting new avenues for applications in health, human performance, and space exploration.

This Frontiers Research Topic aims to bring together innovative and interdisciplinary contributions that explore how the immune system and other physiological systems adapt, respond, and are modulated under extreme environmental conditions. The collection welcomes original manuscripts, systematic reviews, mini-reviews, perspectives, and opinion articles that address, among other topics:

• Alterations in immune function during extreme environmental exposures in mountain climbers, deep-sea divers, polar explorers, astronauts, and military personnel;
• Effects of acute and chronic hypoxia on innate and adaptive immune mechanisms;
• Interactions between heat stress and inflammation;
• Animal and cellular models that simulate extreme environmental conditions;
• Nutritional, pharmacological, or behavioral strategies to mitigate adverse effects of environmental stressors on immunity;
• Impacts of extreme environments on gut microbiota, gut-brain axis, and systemic inflammation;
• Physiological and immunological adaptations in athletes training in extreme environments;
• Immunological adaptations to environmental stress over evolutionary time in human and comparative animal models and their genetic and molecular underpinnings.

This is a rapidly expanding field of research, with direct implications for sports medicine, occupational health, aerospace sciences, immunonutrition, and comparative physiology. Furthermore, understanding immuno-physiological responses under extreme conditions may also shed light on possible biological mechanisms useful in the search for novel disease treatments.

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Immuno-physiological Responses in Extreme Environments