Psychoneuroimmunology is the branch of neuroscience involved with interactions between environmental stimuli, the nervous system and immune system. From the last two decades it has acquired a sound scientific basis due to which it became a centre of researches. The immune system is made up of cells, tissues and organs that connect to each other through the blood stream and lymphatic. The immune...

Various stressors, including both psychological as well as physiological, have been demonstrated to influence the immune response, presumably through activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and sympathetic nervous system. Anecdotal evidence, and retrospective and prospective studies, have demonstrated an effect of psychological and physiological stress on immune-based diseases suc...

Since its early days, nursing has appreciated the connection between mind and body. Even when the dualistic Descartesian perspective that the brain was separated from the rest of the body pervaded Western medicine during the majority of the 19th and 20th centuries, nursing embraced a holistic view of patient care. Florence Nightingale, in her Notes on Nursing published in 1862, eloquently wrote...

Psychoneuroimmunology is a recent hybrid science that encompasses immunology, endocrinology, neuroscience, psychiatry and psychology. However, the concept that the brain has a profound effect on the physical, as well as the mental, health is not new. For example, the Roman physician Galen, 1800 years B.P., reported that only 20% of his patients had a major physical basis for their medical sympt...

Janice K. Kiecolt-Glaser1, Lynanne McGuire2, Theodore F. Robles3, and Ronald Glaser4 1,2Department of Psychiatry and 4Department of Molecular Virology, Immunology, and Medical Genetics, The Ohio State University College of Medicine, 1670 Upham Drive, Columbus, Ohio 43210; e-mail: [email protected] 3Department of Psychology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210; e-mail: robles....