ArticleNature neuroscience2025
Neural anticipation of virtual infection triggers an immune response.
Article in Nature neuroscience, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed.
- Voluntary attention regulates acute immune responses in humans.Nature human behaviour · 2026Article
- From peripersonal space to cognitive maps: An evolutionary perspective.Progress in neurobiology · 2026Review
- Epigenetic mechanisms of inflammatory memory in the central nervous system.Nature immunology · 2026Review
- Illusory cold desensitizes touch.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Long COVID as Neuroimmune Disorders.ImmunoTargets and therapy · 2026Review
- The efferent pathway hypothesis-A mini-review on conditioned immune enhancement.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2026Review
- The nine hallmarks of mental health and wellbeing as a watershed framework for resilient living and healthspan optimization.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Embodied simulation, body language, and symbolization: understanding somatic symptoms in psychoanalysis.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Believing in simulated virtual scents produces reported olfactory sensations.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Comparison of Metabolic and Pulmonary Variables Between Real-Life and Mixed Reality Pickleball.Journal of functional morphology and kinesiology · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
19 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Once contact with a pathogen has occurred, it might be too late for the immune system to react. Here, we asked whether anticipatory neural responses might sense potential infections and signal to the immune system, priming it for a response. We show that potential contact with approaching infectious avatars, entering the peripersonal space in virtual reality, are anticipated by multisensory-motor areas and activate the salience network, as measured with psychophysics, electroencephalography and functional magnetic resonance imaging. This proactive neural anticipation instigates changes in both the frequency and activation of innate lymphoid cells, mirroring responses seen in actual infections. Alterations in connectivity patterns between infection-sensing brain regions and the hypothalamus, along with modulation of neural mediators, connect these effects to the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. Neural network modeling recapitulates this neuro-immune cross-talk. These findings suggest an integrated neuro-immune reaction in humans toward infection threats, not solely following physical contact but already after breaching the functional boundary of body-environment interaction represented by the peripersonal space.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.