The Psycho-neuro-immune-endocrine Response: a Physiological and Pathological Way of Life

docrine systems, which have been considered as separate “systems” can be considered components of a single integrated defence mechanism in which the interactions between systems is as important to understanding adaptation as the interaction within a system (Ader, Cohen and Felten, 1995). The study of the response of this single integrated defense mechanism of the organism when it is exposed to an old stimulus such as the mechanical energy, could be a method to learn the interactions that exist between these three systems (Lorente et al., 1995). Acute mechanical trauma can produce different conditions in the human being, acute local inflammation and the polytraumatized patient respectively representing its least and greatest severity. The evolution of both conditions can be explained by the successive alterations which are produced in the blood vascular endothelium and, by extension, in the vascular wall (Lorente et al., 1995). The endothelium, owing to its strategic position, plays an exceedingly important role in regulating the vascular system by integrating diverse mechanical and biochemical signals and by responding to them through the release of vasoactive subsPsicothema, 1996. Vol. 8, no 2, pp. 375-381 ISSN 0214 9915 CODEN PSOTEG