Figure 4.

Co-evolution/co-development of the neural and immune repertoires. The co-development/co-evolution model proposes that during evolution, neural and T-cell repertoires have exerted mutual selection pressures. In one hand, the T-cell repertoire directed against brain superautoantigens may have favored the emergence of a neural repertoire expressing brain superautoantigens. On the other hand, the neural repertoire expressing brain superautoantigens may have favored the emergence of a T-cell repertoire directed against brain superautoantigens. As a result, evolution of the immune and nervous systems, the two main systems allowing the sensing of and adaptation to the external environment would have been, at least in part, endogenously-driven. This figure is reproduced with permission and slight modifications from the chapter “Brain superautoantigens: connections between immune and neural repertoires” published in the e-book “Brainimmune” (Nataf, 2017a).