On the heart, the mind, and how inflammation killed the Cartesian dualism. Commentary on the 2015 Named Series: Psychological Risk Factors and Immune System Involvement in Cardiovascular Disease

The 2015 Named Series on “Psychological Risk Factors and Immune System Involvement in Cardiovascular Disease” was conceived with the idea of drawing attention to the interdisciplinary work aimed at investigating the relationships between the heart, metabolic system, brain, and mental health. In this commentary, we provide a brief overview of the manuscripts included in this Named Series and highlight how a better understanding of immune regulation will help us to move forward from the current “dualistic” perspective of the heart as separate from the mind to a more comprehensive understanding of the physiological links between cardiovascular and mental disorders. The manuscripts included in this Named Series range across a wide spectrum of topics, from understanding biological mechanisms explaining comorbidity between cardiovascular disease and psychiatric disorders to new insights into the dysregulation of inflammation associated with cardiovascular risk factors. Clearly, inflammation emerges as a cross-cutting theme across all studies. Data presented in this Series contribute to putting an end to an era in which the heart and the mind were considered to be separate entities in which the responses of one system did not affect the other.