Dr. Boris Sakic, an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioural neurosciences, recently spoke to The Globe and Mail about the link between our immune system and how our brains function.

In the story, Sakic notes that patients with conditions such as multiple sclerosis (an autoimmune disease with well-recognized effects on the nervous system) also tend to suffer from various psychiatric symptoms. Read an excerpt below:

Boris Sakic … suggests immune-related mental illnesses could be more prevalent than we may think. Consider, for example, that 70 per cent of people who suffer from the autoimmune illness lupus develop neurological and psychiatric symptoms, he says. Within Canada and the U.S., millions of individuals suffer from lupus. If 70 per cent of those lupus patients develop depression, anxiety, psychosis and dementia, “then this number is quite significant,” he says.

Read the full story in The Globe and Mail.

Sakic’s area of expertise, psychoneuroimmunology, is a growing interdisciplinary field that examines both the neuroendocrine (cells that receive neural input) and the human immune system. His primary research involves studying the link between autoimmune diseases and atypical behaviour.

Lupus, a devastating autoimmune disease where immune cells begin to attack a patient’s brain along with other organs and tissues, is one of Sakic’s primary research interests.

Sakic won a 2014 MSU Teaching Award based on his expertise in the classroom and engagement with McMaster students.

“I like to teach students to become critical thinkers,” Sakic says in his MSU Teaching Award profile video. “Einstein used to say imagination is more important than knowledge.” Watch the full interview below: