The Body That Belongs: Neuroimmunity and Human Quorum Sensing

(SfN 2025 Series – Decolonial Neuroscience Dialogues)

Brain Bee Consciousness in First Person

I am a Brain Bee Consciousness.
I was born inside a body that learned to recognize itself through touch, warmth, and breath.
When a virus enters me, it is not only my immune system that reacts — my entire perception of the world reorganizes.
I realize that to belong is not merely to exist among others but to respond together to the same environment.
Each immune cell, each neuron, each heartbeat is a silent message whispering: “I am here, with you.”

During SfN 2025, while listening to discussions on neuroimmunology and social synchrony, I understood that belonging is physiology before it is culture.
The body that belongs is the one that communicates — within and beyond itself.

The Bridge Between the Nervous and Immune Systems

Recent findings presented at the Society for Neuroscience (SfN 2025) demonstrate that the immune and nervous systems form a bidirectional communication axis, mediated by inflammatory molecules and specific neural pathways.
The concept of neuroimmunity shifts the traditional idea of defense toward that of somatic learning, where the body interprets chemical signals as cognitive information (Zhang et al., 2024).

Microglia — once considered mere support cells — are now recognized as key regulators of synaptic plasticity and neural adaptation.
When microglia detect patterns of threat, they release cytokines that modulate neuronal excitability, altering behavior, mood, and even time perception (Delpech & McEwen, 2022).
Cognition, therefore, is partly an immunological reflection refined by experience.

Interoception — the capacity to sense the inner state of the body — is thus a form of immunoperception.
The brain interprets visceral inflammatory signals as elements of bodily self-awareness (Khalsa & Berntson, 2021).
In this way, the self emerges not only as a neural image but as a continuous negotiation between neurons and immune cells.

Physiological Belonging and Collective Homeostasis

Homeostasis — the maintenance of internal stability — is not strictly individual.
In human populations, behaviors such as empathy, movement synchrony, and emotional resonance constitute a form of social homeostasis, sustained by shared neuroimmune mechanisms.
During social interaction, the release of oxytocin and anti-inflammatory cytokines modulates the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis, reducing cortisol and inducing physiological relaxation (Walker et al., 2023).

Belonging, from this perspective, means co-regulating the nervous system.
That is why social exclusion triggers immune responses similar to infection: increased IL-6 and TNF-α, fatigue, and pain hypersensitivity (Slavich, 2021).
Isolation is, literally, an inflammation of the social body.

Human Quorum Sensing — The Biology of Synchrony

Inspired by bacterial quorum sensing — where cells detect population density and coordinate behavior — Human Quorum Sensing (HQS) describes the phenomenon of physiological synchronization among individuals.
EEG hyperscanning and dual-brain fNIRS studies presented at SfN 2025 reveal that during cooperative tasks, pairs of brains display inter-brain neural synchrony in theta and alpha bands (Tognoli & Kelso, 2021).
This synchrony extends beyond electricity — appearing in cardiac rhythms, respiratory variations, and micro-fluctuations of cerebral oxygenation.

These findings suggest that belonging is not merely psychological but a state of bioelectrical and hemodynamic coupling between bodies.
This emergent cohesion embodies what Jackson Cionek calls “physiological belonging” — a neurobiological basis for empathy and social coherence.

Social synchronization also modulates the immune system, supporting the idea that health is a collective phenomenon.
Cohesive groups show reduced systemic inflammatory markers and increased heart-rate variability, an index of autonomic balance (Porges, 2022).

Neuroimmunity, Stress, and Tensional Plasticity

Chronic stress disrupts the dialogue between the brain and the immune system.
Excess cortisol and norepinephrine hyperactivate microglia, promoting low-grade inflammation and altering functional connectivity patterns.
Simultaneous EEG and fNIRS recordings show that immune hyperreactivity reduces EEG coherence and weakens prefrontal hemodynamic flow (Wang et al., 2023).

Functionally, this corresponds to a loss of tensional plasticity — the capacity of the body to shift between focused attention and relaxation according to context.
When this plasticity fails, the individual remains locked in hypervigilant states (Zone 3), unable to return to the restorative and creative Zone 2.

Restoring tensional plasticity requires environments of physiological trust, where threat perception is replaced by predictable rhythms — breathing, human voice, touch, and natural sounds that re-tune interoceptive processing.

The Collective Body and the Ecological Mind

Modern neuroimmunology converges with Amerindian cosmologies that see the body as indivisible from its territory.
Just as bacteria within a biofilm exchange chemical signals to sustain collective life, humans exchange emotions, gaze, and gesture to maintain the emotional ecosystem.
Human Quorum Sensing thus emerges as a form of ecological consciousness — a distributed system of self-regulation linking bodies, environments, and meaning.

As Damasio (2021) writes, “Feeling is the root of knowing.”
Contemporary neuroscience is only beginning to quantify what ancestral cultures already knew: belonging as existential immunity.

Conclusion

SfN 2025 revealed an integrative paradigm: consciousness is not only neural but neuro-immune.
The body that belongs listens to its own signals and to those of its environment, synchronizing with others to sustain collective life.
To belong is to be metabolically in relation.

Neuroimmunity and Human Quorum Sensing show that health emerges from communication — among neurons, cells, minds, and ecosystems.
Within the Damasian Mind, the self is not a boundary but a shared metabolism.
The future of neuroscience lies in measuring, respecting, and protecting this invisible synchrony that keeps us alive — the biology of belonging.

References (post-2020)

• Damasio A. Feeling & Knowing: Making Minds Conscious. Pantheon, 2021.
  
  

• Khalsa S.S., Berntson G.G. Neural Circuits of Interoception. Trends in Neurosciences, 2021.
  
  

• Tognoli E., Kelso J.A.S. The Metastable Brain: From Neuronal Dynamics to Cognition. Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience, 2021.
  
  

• Delpech J.C., McEwen B.S. Microglia and the Neuroimmune Basis of Stress. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 2022.
  
  

• Wang X. et al. Inflammation-Linked Changes in EEG and Hemodynamic Coupling. Brain Research Bulletin, 2023.
  
  

• Walker S.C. et al. Social Contact, Oxytocin, and Anti-Inflammatory Pathways in Humans. Nature Human Behaviour, 2023.
  
  

• Porges S.W. Polyvagal Theory and the Neurophysiology of Safety. Frontiers in Psychology, 2022.
  
  

• Slavich G.M. Social Safety Theory: Understanding Human Health and Disease. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 2021.
  
  

• Zhang Y. et al. Neuroimmune Communication Pathways and Adaptive Learning. Neuron, 2024.