Kevin J. Tracey

The human body is capable of killing itself for little apparent reason, and it happens often enough to rank as the third most common cause of death in the United States today. Kevin Tracey, a neurosurgeon, immunologist, and highly regarded scientist, offers in Fatal Sequence an easily understandable account of the medical and scientific "perfect storm" that is severe sepsis, the medical crisis tha

The reasoning that neural reflexes maintain homeostasis in other body organs, and that the immune system is innervated, prompted a search for neural circuits that regulate innate and adaptive immunity. This elucidated the inflammatory reflex, a prototypical reflex circuit that maintains immunological homeostasis. Molecular products of infection or injury activate sensory neurons traveling to the b

A key question in immunology concerns how sterile injury activates innate immunity to mediate damaging inflammation in the absence of foreign invaders. The discovery that HMGB1, a ubiquitous nuclear protein, mediates the activation of innate immune responses led directly to the understanding that HMGB1 plays a critical role at the intersection of the host inflammatory response to sterile and infec

New science reveals the groundbreaking potential of the vagus nerve to regulate your body’s vital systems and heal a wide variety of medical conditions without drugsThe vagus nerve is fundamental to our health and vitality, coordinating critical functions from the precise heartbeat we need to exercise or rest to the balance of appetite and digestion. Made up of 200,000 fibers,