Central and peripheral neuroimmune responses: hypo-responsiveness during pregnancy

There are periods in the life of a healthy animal (including humans) when the febrile response to an immune challenge is suppressed. One such period is during late pregnancy, particularly around the time of parturition. In the 30 or so years since this `febrile hyporesponsiveness¿ was ?rst noted, much work has been done to investigate the mechanisms and adaptive signi?cance of this phenomenon. In this review we present some insight into how and why the body deliberately re-programmes itself to develop smaller fevers in response to an immune challenge and therefore to be potentially less successful at ?ghting infection