Fig. 5: Acute stress impairs the acquisition of immunity to SARS-CoV-2 and influenza.
From: Brain motor and fear circuits regulate leukocytes during acute stress
a, Experimental schematic. b, Lymphocytes in the lymph nodes. n = 4–5 mice per group. c, Pulmonary viral loads. n = 5 mice per group. d, Survival curves. n = 12 (non-stressed) and n = 14 (stressed) mice; two experiments. e–k, Mice were infected with a sublethal dose of IAV. e, Experimental schematic. f, Images of the mediastinal lymph nodes. g, B cells in the mediastinal lymph nodes of WT, PVH CRH-neuron-ablated and B-cell-specific GR-KO mice, as well as of mice with chemogenetic PVH-CRH neuron stimulation (dark orange) or vehicle injection (light orange). n = 7–12 mice per group. h, T cells in the mediastinal lymph nodes in mice as described above and indicated, except for T-cell-specific GR-KO mice. n = 7–13 mice per group. i,j, IAV-specific IgG1 in the BAL (i) and pulmonary viral loads (j) of mice as described above and as indicated. n = 7–13 mice per group. k, Haematoxylin and eosin-stained lung cross-sections of mice under the indicated conditions. Scale bars, 1 mm (low magnification) and 41 µm (high magnification). For b, c and g–j, data are mean ± s.e.m. Statistical analysis was performed using two-tailed unpaired t-tests (b, c and g–i), log-rank (Mantel–Cox) tests (d) and two-tailed unpaired t-tests and Mann–Whitney U-tests (j); ★P < 0.05, ★★P < 0.01, ★★★P < 0.001.
