Allostatic Mechanism of Mind-Body Medicine for Neuroinflammation

Abstract

Chronic inflammatory diseases are the most significant cause of death in the world and entail severe impairment to quality of life. The World Health Organization (WHO) ranks chronic inflammatory diseases as the greatest threat to human health and wellbeing. Inflammation is epicentral to many clinical conditions and symptoms, and it is anticipated that the health, economic, and mortality burdens associated with chronic inflammation will steadily increase in the United States over the next 30 years. An inflammatory model of disease premises that peripheral injury/trauma/toxins release signaling mediators that activate glial components of peripheral and central cellular circuitry which if prolonged causes toxification of the central nervous system, or neuroinflammation. This inflammatory process is associated with an array of systemic symptomatology affecting somatic, neurocognitive, and affective domains, that can often be misdiagnosed and/or ineffectively treated in the clinic. Centralized neuroinflammation determines a range of conditions and their clinical trajectories, from autoimmune diseases, cancers, cardiovascular diseases, chronic pain, to neurological and psychiatric disorders. It is coming to light that mind-body medicine, defined here as mindfulness- and yoga-based interventions, appear to modulate peripheral cell signaling involved with inflammatory response. Translational mechanism nor intervention specificity of this early data is currently clearly delineated, posing an exciting and highly beneficial frontier for further empirical exploration in the field of integrative mind-body medicine. Here we initiate an allostasis model of working mechanism that aims to inform methodological design and ensuing empirical perspectives.