For over a century, the brain has held the starring role in the story of how the body defends itself — but a team at Ohio State University is quietly rewriting that script. Funded by a $1.2 million grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation, neuroscientist Phillip Popovich and his colleagues are investigating whether the spinal cord possesses its own capacity to sense infection and direct immune response, independent of the brain's involvement. At the heart of this inquiry are newly discovered nerve cells — ISE neurons — that appear to awaken during inflammation, suggesting that the body's immune int