Anxiety, depression, and asthma: New perspectives and approaches for psychoneuroimmunology research

The field of psychoneuroimmunology has advanced the understanding of the relationship between immunology and mental health. More work can be done to advance the field by investigating the connection between internalizing disorders and persistent airway inflammation from asthma and air pollution exposure. Asthma is a prominent airway condition that affects about 10% of developing youth and 7.7% of adults in the United States. People who develop with asthma are at three times increased risk to develop internalizing disorders, namely anxiety and depression, compared to people who do not have asthma while developing. Interestingly, sex differences also exist in asthma prevalence and internalizing disorder development that differ based on age. Exposure to air pollution also is associated with increased asthma and internalizing disorder diagnoses. New perspectives of how chronic inflammation affects the brain could provide more understanding into internalizing disorder development. This review on how asthma and air pollution cause chronic airway inflammation details recent preclinical and clinical research that begins to highlight potential mechanisms that drive comorbidity with internalizing disorder symptoms. These findings provide a foundation for future studies to identify therapies that can simultaneously treat asthma and internalizing disorders, thus potentially decreasing mental health diagnoses in asthma patients.