From smooth brains to rocky mountains: Quentin Pittman in a Quintessentially Canadian career

Abstract

This commentary is to honour Dr Quentin Pittman as he steps back from an active role in academia. Pittman’s work leaves a legacy of ground-breaking discoveries, impeccable research, and generous mentorship. His work on thermoregulation, vasopressin, perinatal programming, and hypothalamic function laid a good part of the foundation of the psychoneuroimmunology research we do today. His interest in neuroinflammation led to important findings in animal models of chronic peripheral inflammation including colitis and central inflammatory states observed in epilepsy and multiple sclerosis. His integrative approach, ranging from electrophysiological recordings to whole animal behaviour helped answer physiological questions involving the orchestrated functions and interactions of multiple organs. He is one of a few neuroscientists who raised the question of the contribution of peripheral organs to brain function and plasticity at a time when the field was largely neurocentric. Pittman has enhanced our collective understanding of the effects of neonatal inflammation (and other models of perinatal programming) on the adult brain, and has even revealed key ways in which neurons in the brain communicate with each other, through his work on vasopressin, endocannabinoids, and other transmitters. Altogether, Quentin Pittman’s interdisciplinary work has laid a solid foundation for psychoneuroimmunology research and groundbreaking insight into brain-body integration.