Translational Medicine Friday

advances in Immunology have dismantled the doctrine of cns immune privilege

8/21/2026

Val's Take/Conjecture

Dismantling of the Doctrine of CNS Immune Privilege has been central in the paradigm shifting working in IMMUNO-PSYCHIATRY AND NEURO-IMMUNOLOGY.
Neurology is much further along than Traditional Mental Health in understanding Neuro-Immune Mechanisms.
There seems to be widespread understanding of the need to integrate Neurology and Psychiatry --- but the administrative hurdles are significant.

These advances converge on a transnosogenic framework in which immune dysregulation serves as a common denominator across neurodevelopmental, psychiatric, neurodegenerative, autoimmune, and neoplastic diseases, with shared pathways offering cross-disciplinary therapeutic targets

Wildfire Smoke, T-Cell Abnormalities --- Expanding our view of immune vulnerabilities for people with Neurodevelopmental & Psychiatric Disorders

8/18/2026

Val's Take/Conjecture

This is about the need to take an expanded view of Neurodevelopmental and Psychiatric Disorders as in part IMMUNE-MEDIATED DISORDERS.

It's starting to understand vulnerabilities that previously haven't been on the "RADAR SCREEN."

PBS NewsHour
The Risks of Wildfire Smoke

9 News
All Colorado Counties under Air Quality Alert

T-cell immune abnormalities across Neuro-developmental and Psychiatric Disorders

Can t-cell immune abnormalities make someone more vulnerable to wildfire smoke?

What is the significance of sustained microglial activation and NAD+ depletion from wildfire smoke?

It is hard to see how standard mental health practice can be competent without "Neuro-Immunological Concepts"

8/11/2026

Val's Take/Conjecture: One of the biggest problems we have in MENTAL HEALTH is that "NEURO-IMMUNOLOGICAL CONCEPTS" are NOT integral to the practice.

There are a lot of practical challenges --- but it is hard to see how standard mental health practice can be competent without incorporating "NEURO-IMMUNOLOGICAL CONCEPTS."

Yes, integrating neurology and psychiatry is strongly supported as a way to improve understanding, diagnosis, and care for neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders, given their overlapping biology, high comorbidity, and shared clinical features.

What is the historical relationship between Neurology and Psychiatry

"In summary: neuro-immunological concepts are now integral to modern neurology, driving advances in diagnosis/treatment/research—but further work is needed on standardization/training/
interdisciplinary models/global access."

Why Maternal Immune Activation differs Qualitatively from Post-Natal inflammation

8/8/2026

Val's Take/Conjecture
Inflammation is a significant factor in Neurodevelopmental and Psychiatric Disorders --- BUT---
The DEVELOPMENTAL IN-UTERO aspects of Maternal Immune Activation means this is much more complicated than post-natal inflammation.

The core qualitative difference is that MIA inflammation is a developmental reprogramming event—it permanently reshapes stem cell populations, epigenetic landscapes, and microglial phenotypes during critical windows—whereas postnatal inflammation is an acute immune response to an existing, already-formed system

Organelle-to-circuit models of Bioenergetic Collapse in Neuro-Degenerative, Neuro-Developmental and Psychiatric Disorders

7/25/2026

Adult Cognitive Disability
Bioenergetic Collapse: The Organelle-to-Circuit Model of Alzheimer's

Dr. Jessica Eccles, Hyper-Mobility, PoTS, Neuro-Diversity and Connective Tissue Variation

7/25/2026

The Hidden 20 Percent

Interview with Dr. Jessica Eccles

Associate Professor in Brain-Body Medicine at Brighton and Sussex Medical School, a Consultant Psychiatrist within the Sussex Partnership NHS Neurodevelopmental Service, and co-leads the world’s first Neurodivergent Brain-Body Clinic

Hypermobility, POTS [Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome] + ADHD, Autism, ND [Neuro-Diversity] Connection

Parkinson's, Toxins AND Neuro-Developmental & Psychiatric Disorders

7/9/2026

Val's Take/Conjecture

One of the big messages of this video --- Parkinson's isn't just a brain disease.

Further, Parkinson's is greatly associated with Exposure to Toxins.

People with Parkinson's have psychiatric symptoms -- some of which are the result of the disease and some of the medication.

There are relationships, perhaps vulnerabilities, between Neuro-Developmental and Psychiatric Disorders.

Parkinson's is greatly associated with Lewy Body Dementia --- an Atypical Parkinson's Plus Disorder.
- Robin Williams had severe Lewy Body Dementia.

The associations among Neuro-Developmental and Psychiatric Disorders and Neuro-Degenerative Disorders such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's are fairly well established.

Mark Hyman, M.D. with leading Parkinson's Neurologists
Dr. Ray Dorsey and Dr. Michael Okun
Why Parkinson's is Exploding and How to Protect Yourself

More and more we see associations with Neuro-Developmental Disorders, Psychiatric Disorders, Toxins and Auto-Immune Disease, Cancer and Obesity.

Historically, how we have come at these issues and questions: --- What is THE CAUSE of this problem or disorder?

The Research Evidence largely doesn't support --- a single cause --- but COMPLEX, MULTI-FACTORAL INTER-ACTIONS. Although for some disorders such as Parkinson's Disease, Toxins are greatly associated with the disease.

Toxins, both natural and synthetic, are significant factors in Neuro-Developmental and Psychiatric Disorders. The complexities of these relationships are great, AND missing the importance of Toxins as Triggers and Accelerants is a costly miss.

PD [Parkinson's Disease] is therefore best viewed not as an isolated movement disorder, but as part of a broader lifespan brain-disorder continuum that overlaps meaningfully, though incompletely, with neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disease.

Lifespan Links Across Brain Disorders

These relationships center on developmental timing, environmental exposures, and shared biology across mental, neurodevelopmental, and neurodegenerative disorders.

The literature connects neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders with Parkinson’s disease through a DOHaD-and-exposome model in which early-life and cumulative exposures shape later vulnerability.

Neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders, Parkinson’s disease, and toxins are linked through three facets: developmental programming, shared mechanisms, and lifelong cumulative exposure.

Research has progressed from early developmental programming to a lifespan exposome mode . . .

The arc moves from DOHaD [Developmental Origins of Health & Disease], which focused on early sensitive windows, to exposome frameworks that track interacting exposures from conception through aging.

More recent reviews explicitly connect neurodevelopment, psychiatric trajectories, and neurodegeneration within one life-course model

The key implication is that brain disorders form a lifespan continuum, not isolated childhood versus old-age diseases.

Across the 20 papers, the strongest synthesis is that cumulative and time-specific exposures within the exposome interact with genes and social context to shape risk for neurodevelopmental disorders, psychiatric illness, and Parkinson’s disease over decades.

In utero microglial dysregulation can durably alter brain wiring and immune set-points, increasing lifelong psychiatric risk.

7/6/2026

Val's Take/Conjecture

We're getting a clearer and clearer understanding of how Dysregulation of MICROGLIA --- the BRAIN'S INNATE IMMUNE CELLS ---- prenatally can lead to Lifelong Neurodevelopmental and Psychiatric Risk.
Further, IMMUNE SET POINTS are being re-set in ways we previously did not imagine.
- Which greatly affects so-called "SECOND HITS" [or more] throughout the Lifespan.

An "Over-reactive immune system" --- & Multiple, Cumulative, Diverse Triggers

6/18/2026

Val's Take/Conjecture

University of Michigan
The Study of Bipolar Disorder is the Study of Humanity (2017)

Cells that are DEVELOPMENTALLY MORE REACTIVE --- with a LIFE OF THIER OWN.

3 Big Take Aways from the Research

Crash Course World History
Disease! (2014)

What is the Exposome?

How does Maternal Immune Activation Prime Life-Long Immune-Brain Vulnerability?

Maternal immune activation reprograms the fetal brain and immune system, creating long‑term vulnerability to neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders.

Maternal immune activation (MIA) during pregnancy or early postnatal life acts as an early-life “hit” that reshapes fetal brain development, neuroimmune circuits, and epigenetic regulation, with effects lasting into adolescence and adulthood.

Thucydides

Ancient Greek Historian Thucydides is most famous for the History of the Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.)

As part of documenting the antecedents to the war, Thucydides includes the Plague of Athens in 430 B.C.

"The earliest known reference to immunity was during the plague of Athens in 430 BC. Thucydides noted that people who had recovered from a previous bout of the disease could nurse the sick without contracting the illness a second time" --- Wikipedia

That understanding of the Immune System is what a lot of us have today, but knowledge regarding the Immune System has exploded.

The Brain is NOT IMMUNE PRIVILEGED as once thought.
The Immune System is involved in "SOCIAL BEHAVIOR."
The Immune System is involved in Neuro-Developmental, Psychiatric & Addiction Disorders.
Aging of the Immune System is a strong predictor of longevity --- IMMUNOSENSCENCE --- "the gradual deterioration of the immune system."

Pathophysiological associations between maternal immune activation and neurodevelopmental disorders in offspring: a comprehensive review (2025)

<<<<<<<<<<<

Summary

MIA primes lifelong immune–brain vulnerability by:

(1) altering placental signaling and fetal cytokine balance;

(2) reprogramming neural progenitors, microglia, and macrophages;

(3) inducing durable epigenetic and transcriptomic changes in neural circuits; and

(4) reshaping offspring immune responses to later challenges.

Together, these processes create a long‑lasting, system‑wide susceptibility to neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders.

Moving from short-term, acute Rehab to Long-Term Recovery and Support in Addiction care

6/6/2026

Val's Take/Conjecture:

Talking about Substance Use and Neuro-Diversity is fraught because Neuro-Diverse People often represent the EXTREMES and a wide range of unusual combinations.

Typically, people with ADHD are perceived to have more problems with Substance Use than people with Autism. It's a lot more complicated than that.

We have these broad categories --- BUT they often miss the CLINICAL COMPLEXITY.

Clinicians are presented with people with complex Developmental Issues and diverse and complex Neuro-Immune Trajectories over the LIFESPAN.

The public and policy makers and I often tell Clinicians -- like Zuzu to George Bailey, "Fix it Daddy (or Mommy)" ---- without a solid understanding of what we're talking about --- and that includes the Clinicians.

We're getting better understandings and that should help provide support for that Comprehensive Continuum of Care that can handle large numbers of "COMPLEX CASES" while at the same time providing the TRANSLATIONAL RESEARCH AND MEDICINE that we need to make the best use of limited resources.

"In summary: Clapton’s drug problems were severe and career‑damaging, but he never served time in prison for drug offenses. His recovery came through multiple rehab stays and personal resolve, not legal incarceration." --- Copilot.

BUT --- the Ethical and Policy Challenges of ADDICTION are REAL.

See Colorado community reels after police say driver with revoked license from a DUI hits 2 pedestrians, killing 1.

Can Maternal Immune Activation and Immune Priming predispose people to not only Neurodevelopmental and Psychiatric Disorders but also Addiction Disorders?

While maternal immune activation clearly increases risk for neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders, animal and review data also indicate it can heighten vulnerability to addictive behaviors, especially when combined with later “second hits” like adolescent stress or drug exposure.

Eric Clapton
Cocaine

Do Addiction Treatments need to be re-oriented from Short-Term Rehab to Long Term recovery?

Conclusion

Across quantitative, qualitative, and review studies, addiction is framed as a long-term condition, and longer, sustained, adaptive care outperforms brief, stand‑alone rehab.

The literature strongly supports re-orienting systems toward chronic-disease style, recovery-focused care that combines acute treatment with ongoing monitoring, supports, and community resources.

MAKING THE SUCCESSFUL HANDOFF FROM THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM TO Public Health, Housing, Etc.

<<Previous