פרופ' אסיה רולס

Prof. Asya Rolls is a researcher at the faculty of life science at TAU. She studies how the brain regulates immunity and how mental states can reflect in the organism’s ability to cope with disease. Rolls is the recipient of several ERC grants (Starting, Consolidator and POC) from the European Research Council , Krill Prize and the Rappaport Prize for young scietists. In 2018 she was selected as one of 40 International Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigators in collaboration with the Wellcome trust (2018-2023). 

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Education and training:

Academic appointments:

2024-  current   Full Professor, Faculty of Medicine, Technion, Israel

2022-   2024     Full Professor, Faculty of Medicine, Technion, Israel

2018 – 2022     Associate Professor, Faculty of Medicine, Technion, Israel

2012 – 2018     Assistant Professor, Faculty of Medicine, Technion, Israel

The philosophical mind-body problem explores the relationship between mental processes (the mind) and their impact on physical entities (the body). These interactions are evident in modern medicine through psychosomatic disorders, stress-related illnesses, and the placebo effect. Yet, our understanding of the mechanisms underlying this fundamental aspect of physiology remains limited.

Our laboratory focuses on a specific dimension of brain-body interactions: the dialogue between the brain and the immune system, the body’s primary defense mechanism. We explore how these two systems coordinate, how the brain senses immune activity, and how specific brain activities can orchestrate immune responses to conditions such as cancer and gut inflammation.

How do we study this?

Each brain state and mental process is associated with characteristic activity within specific neuronal networks. We use state-of-the-art neuroscience tools, including optogenetics, DREADDs, and genetic manipulations, to control these neuronal networks in mice and establish their causal effects on the immune system. In parallel, we apply advanced immunology techniques to explore the immune system at both a broad, systemic level and through specific molecular mechanisms, utilizing omics approaches.

What have we discovered so far?

We found that the brain’s reward system, which is involved in positive expectations and hope (e.g., during the placebo response), enhances immune activity to fight bacterial infections and cancer. Recently, we also showed that it aids in recovery from heart attacks. These findings offer a mechanistic perspective on the placebo effect and illustrate how mental states can influence the body’s ability to cope with disease.

In another line of research, we discovered that the brain stores representations of past inflammatory conditions and can “replay” them to recreate inflammation even without an external inflammatory trigger. This suggests that mental processes can initiate disease and offers new insights into the mechanisms behind disorders often dismissed as psychosomatic.

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Reward system activation improves recovery from acute myocardial infarction.
Haykin H, Avishai E, Krot M, Ghiringhelli M, Reshef M, Abboud Y, Melamed S, Merom S, Boshnak N, Azulay-Debby H, Ziv T, Gepstein L, Rolls A.Nat Cardiovasc Res. Nature 2024 Jul;3(7):841-856. 

Insular cortex neurons encode and retrieve specific immune responses.
Koren T, Yifa R, Amer M, Krot M, Boshnak N, Ben-Shaanan TL, Azulay-Debby H, Zalayat I, Avishai E, Hajjo H, Schiller M, Haykin H, Korin B, Farfara D, Hakim F, Kobiler O, Rosenblum K, Rolls A.
Cell. 2021 Nov 24;184(24):5902-5915.e17. 

Optogenetic activation of local colonic sympathetic innervations attenuates colitis by limiting immune cell extravasation.
Schiller M, Azulay-Debby H, Boshnak N, Elyahu Y, Korin B, Ben-Shaanan TL, Koren T, Krot M, Hakim F, Rolls A.Immunity. 2021 May 11;54(5):1022-1036.e8.