关键词：炎症；响应（生物学）；应力（心理学）；创伤和损伤
摘 要：Gulf War Illness (GWI) is a multi-symptom syndrome with features of an inflammatory response due to infection or injury, findings suggestive of a chronic neuroimmune/neuroinflammatory disorder. Our overarching hypothesis is that exposure to GWI-relevant compounds lead to enhanced and/or prolonged expression of proinflammatory mediators in the brain. Our overall objective is to establish a neuroinflammatory model of GWI-related exposures, to define the contribution of high physiological stress, and to assess the potential for pharmacotherapy to ameliorate these effects. The results are suggestive of a possible critical and as yet unrecognized interaction between the stressful environs of the GW theater and agent exposure(s) unique to this war, exposures in which the CNS is primed to amplify future exposures to pathogens, injury or toxicity. Recently it has been shown that stress-induced augmentation of neuroinflammation induced by a positive control compound persists for 30 days after stress presentation, and that repeated intermittent stress presentations have a cumulative effect on the neuroinflammation. Such occurrences could potentially result in prolonged episodes of sickness behavior that would simulate GWiwell.