Felipe Fregni

Looking for the Magic Pill Felipe Fregni

You have heard it before: someone is undergoing a stressful period and because of that their immunity is decreased, and they get the flu. Is this true? Does the human brain have that effect on the immune system? Also if you are feeling relaxed and in a good mood, does this affect your inflammatory response? This is what the science of the brain-immune system is trying to respond to. Although this is not new, in this book, Dr. Fregni and 10 colleagues try to answer these questions by looking into experimental studies that aimed to change brain activity and how it affects the immune system. Therefore, they analyzed investigations on behavioral techniques such as meditation and neurofeedback, studies assessing techniques of peripheral nerve stimulation, including acupuncture, electroacupuncture, transcutaneous nerve stimulation, non-invasive vagal nerve stimulation, and then techniques of brain stimulation including transcranial magnetic stimulation and electroconvulsive therapy. They reviewed and discussed in this book how these techniques modulate the inflammatory response. Although this is a new science still in development, analyzing these studies together gives us valuable insights into the critical relationship of the brain and the immune system from different techniques and studies. It becomes clear that the brain can trigger and also block inflammation. This new science may, in the future, provide more natural and effective anti-inflammatory treatments with fewer and even no adverse effects.