When you come down with the flu, your body lets you know. But the infection itself doesn’t cause symptoms—your brain does. Now, scientists may have figured out a key part of how this happens.
When you come down with the flu, your body lets you know. You lose your appetite, you feel sluggish, and your mood takes a hit. The infection itself doesn’t cause these symptoms—your brain does.
In the new study, Liberles, postdoc Na-Ryum Bin, and colleagues focused on influenza, which infects the body’s airways. Previous research hinted that a type of prostaglandin made in response to viral infection called PGE2 could travel via the blood to interact with cells in the brain.
The discovery of this peripheral pathway “redefines our understanding of how influenza virus infection affects the nervous system to cause sickness behavior,” Elia Tait Wojno, an immunologist at the University of Washington, Seattle, writes in an email. Tiny molecules such as prostaglandins are “notoriously difficult to study,” she adds, praising the researchers’ use of “cutting-edge genetic tools” to narrow in on the mechanism.
One possible explanation: Although sickness behavior makes mice more vulnerable to influenza, it may protect them against other infections. For example, some studies show mice with bacterial sepsis are less likely to survive if they eat more food—probably because the bacteria tap the animal’s blood sugars for fuel. In that instance, a loss of appetite is a good thing, Liberles says.
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