Neuroscience meets salivary bioscience: An integrative perspective

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Salivary Bioscience

Background:

• Salivary bioscience provides a minimally invasive approach to study biological mechanisms.
• Oral fluid sampling is quick, easy, and suitable for diverse settings.
• Salivary analytes offer insights into endocrine, autonomic, immune, metabolic, and inflammatory processes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To review advances in salivary bioscience for neuroscience.
• To present novel salivary analytes relevant to neuroscience.
• To outline a framework for integrating salivary methods into neuroscience.

Main Methods:

• Literature review of salivary bioscience applications in neuroscience.
• Identification and assessment of novel salivary analytes.
• Development of a procedural framework for method integration.

Main Results:

• Advances enable exploration of individual differences in learning, memory, psychiatric, and neurodegenerative disorders.
• Salivary analytes provide real-time indexing of physiological processes linked to behavior and environment.
• Novel analytes and their developmental status are presented.

Conclusions:

• Salivary bioscience presents significant opportunities for neuroscience research.
• The minimally invasive nature and ease of collection facilitate broad application.
• Integration of these methods will advance understanding of human neuroscience.