Mechanosensitive Signaling and Mechanotransduction: The Role of Connective Tissue in Neural Function and Dysfunction

The nervous system continually interacts with its mechanical environment. Increasing evidence demonstrates that connective tissues and related extracellular matrices are not passive structural elements but active mechanosensitive interfaces capable of influencing neural signaling, plasticity, and dysfunction. Mechanotransduction pathways within connective tissues may play a critical role in peripheral and central nervous system communication, neuroimmune interactions, and the persistence of chronic neurological symptoms.Highlighting advances in imaging, biomechanics, cellular neuroscience, and patient-reported outcome research will allow these interactions to be studied across scales from molecular and cellular mechanisms to clinical syndromes and lived patient experience. This Research Topic aims to integrate basic, translational, and practitioner perspectives to examine how mechanosensitive signaling within connective tissue contributes to neural function, dysfunction, and patient quality of life.Our goal is to signal maturity of the field, not its infancy. This Research Topic stretches beyond whether connective tissue is relevant to neurology; it asks how mechanosensitive signaling within connective tissues contributes to neural function, dysfunction, and patient-reported outcomes and how those relationships should be measured. This Research Topic welcomes interdisciplinary contributions that might explore but not limited to: Mechanotransduction pathways linking connective tissue and neural systemsStructural, cellular, and molecular features of connective tissue relevant to neural signalingNeuroimmune and autonomic interactions mediated by mechanically sensitive tissuesClinical and translational implications for neurological symptoms and disordersQuantitative and qualitative approaches to patient-reported outcomes related to mechanosensitive dysfunctionChronic neurological symptom persistencePatient-experienced phenomena (pain, fatigue, stiffness, dysautonomia)By bridging experimental neuroscience, clinical neurology, imaging, biomechanics, and patient-centered research, this Research Topic seeks to establish connective tissue as a biologically meaningful component of neural health and disease without presupposing therapeutic paradigms. Topic editors: Rebecca L Pratt PhD, Caio V. Messias Sarmento, Mette Coleman, Alison Slater Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/76974/mechanosensitive-signaling-and-mechanotransduction-the-role-of-connective-tissue-in-neural-function-and-dysfunction