Internal Activity of the Immune System and its Physiologie Significance

After the introduction of Jerne’s network theory 10 years ago, modern views of the immune system have been strongly influenced by the ideas of autonomy previously developed by those working on complex systems such as the brain. This “new immunology” attempts to describe the normal immune system as it is, the fundamental characteristics of its Organization and, in the words of Francisco Varela, “the landscape of its eigen behaviours.” Within this perspective, the study of the internal activity of the immune system, of the generation and decay of its cellular and molecular components, is likely to provide more relevant information as to the physiology of immune activity than the study of immune responses to the injection of large doses of antigen, as in classical approaches.