Scientists prove that brain-immune system communication is crucial for health. They show that a communication breakdown between the brain and immune system is associated with autoimmune/inflammatory diseases such as arthritis and multiple sclerosis. This research provides the evidence needed to convince the scientific community of the brain-immune connection's importance.

When this research was first published, up until the mid-1990s, many scientists and physicians were still skeptical that the brain-immune communication was real and questioned whether it had any relevance to human disease. In response to this, one of the field’s key researchers, Esther Sternberg, set out to convince academics that there was substantial research proving that the brain and immune systems do communicate and that this communication plays a very important part in health and disease.

Sternberg's 2000 book The Balance Within: The Science Connecting Health and Emotions explores the science of the mind-body connection, the reasons this field was at first rejected by the academic scientific community and how it has come full circle to acceptance. Many textbooks now feature chapters on the brain-immune connection in health and disease.