First published in 1993, Psychoimmunology: CNS-Immune Interactions is based on papers presented at the Second International Scientific Meeting of the Australian Behavioral Immunology Group, held at the University of Newcastle in Australia on March 7 and 8, 1992. Information featured in the volume confirms the longstanding perception that state of mind and behavioral patterns have an impact on general health. Clinicians discuss correlations between lifestyle, stress, and disease, while scientists reveal their findings on ways in which deliberate manipulations of the central nervous systems and behavioral patterns are reflected in changes in immunological outcome. Other papers present findings regarding the mediators of these interactions, which include cytokines, hormones, and neurotransmitters. Psychoimmunology: CNS-Immune Interactions will be a useful reference for psychoimmunologists, immunologists, psychologists, microbiologists, and all medical and behavioral scientists interested in the links between brain behavior and disease.
About the Author: Alan J. Husband is Professor of Veterinary Pathology at the University of Sydney in Australia. Dr. Husband graduated from The University of Sydney with an honours degree in Agricultural Science in 1972 and was awarded a Ph.D. degree from the same university in 1975 for studies of immunity in ruminants. After post-doctoral studies at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology at the University of Oxford, he returned to Australia in 1977 to the position of Research Scientist and head of the Immunology section at the New South Wales State Department of Agriculture Central Veterinary Laboratories. In 1980 he was appointed to an academic position in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Newcastle and was Associate Professor of Immunology until accepting his present appointment at the end of 1991. Dr. Husband is a Fellow of the Australian Society for Microbiology and a member of the Australian Society for Immunology, the Australian Society for Medical Research, the Society for Mucosal Immunology, the Psychoneuroimmunology Research Society and the American Association of Immunologists. He has authored in excess of 100 scientific publications, mostly in the area of mucosal immune defence, but since 1982 has developed additional interests in the emerging area of psychoimmunology, the roles of behaviour and the central nervous system in immunity. He was one of the foundation members of the Australian Behavioural Immunology Group and is currently the National Convenor of that organisation.