It's possible to induce allergic reactions and antibody production against an allergen via Pavlovian Conditioning. The insular cortex is believed to be involved, since lesioning to the insular cortex, but not the hippocampus attenuates the conditioned immune response. What this proves is the brain and the immune system talk to each other. I think allergies are physiological (nocebo) manifestations of phobias. A person gets a phobia of something, be it conscious or subconscious. Then, their brain tells their immune system to produce antibodies against that substance, and they become allergic. I've read articles on hypnosis preventing a peanut allergy from showing up on a skin prick test. I think many people secretly enjoy having allergies. A few weeks ago I read about someone going into anaphylaxis and they said even though they were suffocating it felt really peaceful. Sounds like they were enjoying it to me.
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Pavlovian Conditioning of Immunological and Neuroendocrine Functions | Physiological Reviews
The phenomenon of behaviorally conditioned immunological and neuroendocrine functions has been investigated for the past 100 yr. The observation that associative learning processes can modify peripheral immune functions was first reported and investigated by Ivan Petrovic Pavlov and his...
journals.physiology.org
Insular cortex neurons encode and retrieve specific immune responses - PubMed
Increasing evidence indicates that the brain regulates peripheral immunity, yet whether and how the brain represents the state of the immune system remains unclear. Here, we show that the brain's insular cortex (InsCtx) stores immune-related information. Using activity-dependent cell labeling in...
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Neural and Pavlovian influences on immunity - PubMed
The traditional view that the nervous and immune systems are functionally independent (aside from general stress effects and autoimmune disorders of the nervous system) is being challenged by a new view that the nervous system regulates the activity of the immune system. If this is true, it...
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Conditioned Enhancement of Antibody Production Is Disrupted by Insular Cortex and Amygdala but Not Hippocampal Lesions
Pavlovian conditioning procedures can be used to activate the immune system. A reliable conditioned increase of antibody production can be obtained in…
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