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    Home > Active Ingredient News > Immunology News > Can I start an immune response by seeing a sick partner?

    Can I start an immune response by seeing a sick partner?

    • Last Update: 2021-08-09
    • Source: Internet
    • Author: User
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    ▎Editor of WuXi AppTec's content team Canary (Serinus canaria) is also known as "Hibiscus bird".
    Recently, scientists discovered that this beautiful bird has a magical immune response mechanism
    .

    When they are not sick, they only need to see their sick companions, and the immune system in the body will be activated, so as to "preemptively" provide them with certain protection
    .

     ▲The paper was published in the online edition of Biology Letters (picture source: screenshot of the paper page) Many animals, including humans, will deliberately stay away from sick companions in order to avoid infection
    .

    For example, lobsters will avoid nests with other diseased lobsters, and house finches will automatically keep a distance from the same kind that has symptoms of disease
    .

    However, for some highly social species, such as birds that need to forage together or rely on a safe number of birds, they may need another way to protect themselves
    .

    Under normal circumstances, animals must actually be infected with the virus to activate the immune response
    .

    But some previous studies have shown that the visual perception stimulation of animals may affect their own immune system
    .

    For example, an experiment conducted in humans found that subjects (n=28) just look at pictures of patients for a few seconds (such as chickenpox and sneezing), the white blood cells in the body will produce higher levels of interleukin- 6 (IL-6)
    .

    Interleukin-6 is a kind of cytokines, which play a key role in activating and regulating immune cells and inflammation
    .

     ▲Compared with the control group who watched pictures of ordinary guns, the level of interleukin-6 in subjects who watched pictures of patients was significantly increased (picture source: reference [4]) Ashley Love, the first author of the paper and a graduate student Said: "This study shocked me because it shows that immune cells may use visual cues to provide protection in advance for attacks that have not yet occurred or may never occur, the so-called bystander immunity.
    This is really weird
    .

    ” So can an animal’s immune response be triggered just by looking at the symptoms of similar diseases? To test this idea, the researchers infected 10 caged canaries with Mycoplasma gallisepticum
    .

    These canaries will develop conjunctivitis and become extremely lethargic
    .

    In the nearly 1 month experiment, the researchers placed 9 healthy canaries at a distance enough to avoid infection, but could see their sick companions, and placed them in the same room but unable to see the sick group A healthy canary served as a control
    .

     Image source: 123RF found through blood analysis that although healthy canaries are not infected with the disease, their immune response has been activated after seeing the diseased group, the related CH50 complement activity and heterophilic cell (heterophil) count As the symptoms of the diseased group progressed, it increased and approached the diseased state
    .

    And as the disease of the affected group eased, their immune systems calmed down
    .

    In the control group who did not see the sick partner, no similar phenomenon was observed
    .

    Since all healthy canaries can smell and hear the scents and sounds of the diseased group, the researchers speculate that it is the vision that activates the immune system of these birds
    .

    Researchers say that this ability may help them fight disease and reduce the mortality of species
    .

     Image source: 123RF In future studies, researchers hope to clarify other questions: How much effective protection can this early immune response provide for birds? Can animals adjust their immune response based on the severity of the disease symptoms they see? And does this phenomenon exist in humans? Will human beings automatically activate the immune system due to other biological signals (including sounds, feelings, and even the smell of strangers’ diseases)? This may provide valuable insights for understanding how our body defends against diseases and for the development of new immunotherapies
    .

    Reference materials: [1] Love, AC, et, al.
    (2021).
    Perception of infection: disease-related social cues influence immunity in songbirds.
    Biology Letters, 17(6), 20210125.
    https://doi.
    org/ 10.
    1098/rsbl.
    2021.
    0125https://royalsocietypublishing.
    org/doi/10.
    1098/rsbl.
    2021.
    0125[2] The mere sight of illness may kick-start a canary's immune system.
    Retrieved June 8, 2021, from https://www.
    sciencenews.
    org/article/canary-immune-system-sight-illness-sick-birds[3] For canaries, the sight of other sick birds is enough to set off an immune response.
    Retrieved June 9, 2021, from https:/ /phys.
    org/news/2021-06-canaries-sight-sick-birds-immune.
    html[4] Schaller, M.
    , Miller, GE, Gervais, WM, Yager, S.
    , & Chen, E.
    (2010 ).
    Mere Visual Perception of Other People's Disease Symptoms Facilitates a More Aggressive Immune Response.
    Psychological Science, 21(5), 649–652.
    https://doi.
    org/10.
    1177/0956797610368064[5] Immune Cells Are More Paranoid Than We Thought.
    Retrieved June 8, 2021, from https:// response-birds/619137/
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