Abstract:  Central immune activities exert important roles in maintaining homeostatic process of central nervous system. It has shown that the dynamically balance of brain TNFα participates in the regulation of neurodevelopment, synaptic plasticity and cognitive function by its receptor signaling, while imbalance of TNFα signaling, no matter excessive or insufficient, can result in adverse effects on brain function and behavior. Stress, especially early stress, may disturb the dynamic development process of TNFα signaling and thus cause lasting alterations of its expression and receptor function, which strongly linked to the increasing incidences of immune-related psychopathological disorders in late life. Future studies are needed to deepen the understanding of causal relationships between central immunity and cognitive dysfunction, and establish new strategies for disease prevention and treatment based on immunoregulation.

Key words: homeostasis, Tumor necrosis factor (TNFa), stress, synaptic plasticity, cognitive function