Immunoneuropharmacology

This chapter presents an overview of the current literature on the pathophysiological mechanisms of inflammatory mediators in neuroimmune modulation, as well as pharmacological strategies in inflammatory signaling pathways in the central nervous system (CNS). Increasing attention has been paid to the importance of brain–immune interaction for the maintenance of brain homeostasis. If immune activation persists, inflammatory mediators and their signaling pathways can influence neurons/neuronal circuits, leading to mood, cognitive, and behavioral impairment. Therefore, immune dysregulation can play a role in the pathophysiology of psychiatric disorders through its direct and indirect ability to alter the synthesis, reuptake, and release of multiple neurotransmitters, and to induce oxidative stress, mitochondrial dysfunction, cytoskeletal disruption, and cytotoxic lipid peroxidation, among other effects. In this sense, inflammatory mediators and their signaling pathway are currently regarded as attractive targets for promising therapeutic and preventative therapeutic strategies in clinical psychiatry, especially for patients who are resistant to treatment and exhibit inflammatory phenotypes. The efficacy and precision of anti-inflammatory treatments can be further tuned, and they depend on the methodologically rigorous design of future clinical trials.