For decades, anatomists, medical school professors, and health care professionals have believed that the central nervous system — composed of the brain and the spinal cord — is the only part of the body that does not include the lymphatic system. (The lymphatic system is the part of the immune system responsible for transporting, via lymphatic fluid, white blood cells and other immunity-related cells; the lymphatic system also clears the body of toxins and waste products.)
As it turns out, however, all those anatomists, medical school professors, and health care professionals were wrong.
It had long been evident that the central nervous system responds to the immune system, and that this response had something to do with the meninges (the membranes that surround and “shrink-wrap” the brain). But no one could quite figure out how that happened. Recently, though, intrepid researchers at the University of Virginia discovered that the brain is directly connected with the immune system via lymphatic vessels in the meninges that enable T-cells – a key component of the immune system – to enter and exit the brain. These lymphatic vessels carry immune cells from the cerebrospinal fluid, and are connected to lymph nodes deep in the neck.
This discovery could revolutionize medical approaches to neurological disorders that clearly have an immune component, such as multiple sclerosis, and could have profound implications for understanding, and treating, disorders from autism spectrum to Alzheimer’s.
The possibility of something like this was a topic of discussion when I was studying biodynamic craniosacral therapy at 3rd Coast Craniosacral (http://craniosacralevanston.com) in Evanston, Il. We suspected there was a link between the lymphatic system and the brain; in fact, given the beneficial effects of BCST on the brain’s structures, including the meninges, that link was something we intuitively “knew,” even though we couldn’t prove it. Now, we can.