Pordeus V., Ramos G. C., Carvalho C. R., Castro Jr. A. B., Cunha A. P. & Vaz N. M. (2009) Immunopathology and oligoclonal T cell expansions. Observations in immunodeficiency, infections, allergy and autoimmune diseases. Current Trends in Immunology 10: 21–29. https://cepa.info/357
In traditional descriptions immunological activity is neither systemic nor historical and is never “physiological.” Since it is dominated by reductionist, teleological and cognitivist approaches. After deconstructing hegemonic immunology way of seeing, we proposed previously a constructivist explanation to immunological physiology, namely, The Conservative Physiology of the Immune System (Vaz NM Clin Dev Immunol 2006), theory based on our own experimental evidences and referenced on Humberto Maturana’s Biology of Cognition. In this paper we propose an immanent mechanism for immunological pathophysiology and disease development.
Vaz N. M., Ramos G. C., Pordeus V. & Carvalho C. R. (2006) The conservative physiology of the immune system: A non-metaphoric approach to immunological activity. Clinical and Developmental Immunology 13(2–4): 133–142. https://cepa.info/6357
Historically, immunology emerged as a biomedical science, concerned with host defense and production of anti-infectious vaccines. In the late 50s, selective theories were proposed and from then on, immunology has been based in a close association with the neo-Darwinian principles, such as random generation of variants (lymphocyte clones), selection by extrinsic factors (antigens) – and, more generally, on genetic determinism and functionalism. This association has had major consequences: (1) immunological jargon is full of “cognitive” metaphors, founded in the idea of “foreignness”; (2) the immune system is described with a random clonal origin, coupled to selection by random encounters; and (3) physiological events are virtually absent from immunological descriptions. In the present manuscript, we apply systemic notions to bring forth an explanation including systemic mechanisms able to generate immunological phenomena. We replace “randomness plus selection” and the notion of foreignness by a history of structural changes which are determined by the coherences of the system internal architecture at any given moment. The importance of this systemic way of seeing is that it explicitly attends to the organization that defines the immune system, within which it is possible to describe the conservative physiology of the immune system. Understanding immune physiology in a systemic way of seeing also suggests mechanisms underlying the origin of immunopathogeny and therefore suggests new insights to therapeutic approaches. However, if seriously acknowledged, this systemic/historic approach to immunology goes along with a global conceptual change which modifies virtually everything in the domain of biology, as suggested by Maturana.