Asya Rolls

Rolls was one of the first to establish the link between the brain's reward system and the immune system.[10] Her interest in this connection came from the placebo effect.[10] The placebo effect works from the cognitive processes generating positive expectations, but how exactly these processes lead to healing or feeling better were unknown.[10] Rolls found that using DREADDs to activate the ventral tegmental area reward circuitry lead to an increase in the innate and adaptive immune responses in mice upon exposure to bacterial insults.[10]

Following up this study, Rolls was interested in exploring the role of cognitive processes in tumor immunity.[11] Since regulation of immune function is important in approaching potential treatments for cancer, Rolls explored how the brain's reward circuitry was capable of modulating tumor immunity.[11] Strikingly, they found that using DREADDs to activate the brain's reward the circuitry lead to decreases in tumor size and that myeloid derived suppressor cells are critical to allowing the reward system to impact tumor growth.[11]

Rolls has pioneered the use of CyTOF mass cytometry in the characterization of immune cell populations in the brain.[12] She and her team recently characterized previously unknown populations of T, B, Dendritic, and NK Cells  in the brain using this method and found that CD44 is a common marker of infiltrating immune cells.[12] Using CyTOF analysis, Rolls and her team found that after sleep deprivation, B cells begin to infiltrate the brain parenchyma, highlighting the impacts of sleep deprivation on the immune environment in the brain.[12]

In a recent impactful study, Rolls and her team demonstrated the brain's ability to encode and retrieve inflammatory responses in an immunotypic- and anatomic-specific manner. Using activity-dependent cell labelling, she showed that neuronal ensembles in the mouse insular cortex, which were active during two different models of inflammation (colitis and peritonitis), can recapitulate the specific inflammatory response, once reactivated.[13] Moreover, she showed that inhibition of the insular cortex was sufficient to alleviate signs of colon inflammation. These findings lay the foundation for a mechanistic explanation to psychosomatic disorders, as well as novel therapeutic avenues to treat auto-inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. Rolls later-on conceptualized a framework for neuro-immune interactions, coining the term “immunoception”, as the brain's bidirectional monitoring and control of immunity. In addition, she proposed that the physiological trace storing immune-related information, the ‘‘immunengram’’, is distributed between the brain and memory cells residing in peripheral tissues.[14]

• 2017 Howard Hughes Medical Investigator-Wellcome International Research Scholar[15]
• 2017 Krill Prize - Wolf Foundation[16]
• 2015-2019 FENS-Kavli Network of Excellence[5]
• 2017 Adelis Brain Research Award[17]
• 2010 NARSAD Young Investigator Award[18]
• 2009 Rothschild Postdoctoral Fellowship[19]
• 2009 Clore Foundation's Women in Science Award[20]
• 2008 Fulbright Scholar[21]

• 2019 TEDx Technion - Understanding the Brain's Role in Immunity[4]
• 2018 Scientific American Article - Could Brain Stimulation Slow Cancer?[22]
• 2013 Scientific American Mind Article - Faulty Sleep Mechanisms Might Cause Trauma to Linger[23]
• 2012 Nature News Article “To Sleep, Perchance to Forget Fears” [24]
• 2011 Los Angeles Times “ Fragmented Sleep May Impair Memory, Learning”[25]

• Koren T., Yifa R., Amer M., Krot M., Boshnak N., Ben-Shaanan TL., Azulay-Debby H., Zalayat I., Avishai E., Hajjo H, Schiller M., Haykin H., Korin B., Farfara D., Hakim F., Kobiler O., Rosenblum K., and Rolls A.(2021) Insular Cortex Neurons Encode and Retrieve Specific Immune Responses. Cell.[13]
• Schiller M., Azulay-Debby H., Bushnak N., Ben Shannan T., Korin B., Koren T., Krot M., Elyahu Y., Hakim F., Rolls A.(2021) Optogenetic activation of local sympathetic innervations to the colon attenuates DSS-induced colitis. Immunity.[2]
• Ben-Shaanan TL, Schiller M, Azulay-Debby H, Korin B, Boshnak N, Koren T, Krot M, Shakya J, Rahat MA, Hakim F & Rolls A. (2018) Modulation of anti-tumor immunity by the brain's reward system. Nature Communications[11]
• Korin B, Dubovik T, Rolls A. (2018) Mass cytometry analysis of immune cells in the brain. Nature Protocols [2]
• Korin B, Ben-Shaanan TL, Schiller M, Dubovik T, Azulay-Debby H, Boshnak NT, Koren T, Rolls A. (2017). High-dimensional, single-cell characterization of the brain's immune compartment. Nature Neuroscience.[2]
• Ben-Shaanan T.L, Azulay-Debby H., Dubovik T., Starosvetsky E., Korin., Schiller M., Green NL, Admon Y., Hakim F., Shen-Orr S*., Rolls A*. (2016) Activation of the reward system boosts innate and adaptive immunity. Nature Medicine [2]
• Rolls A., Fang W*., Ibarra i*., Bonovien P., Colas D., Heller HC,. Weissman I., de Lecea L. (2015) Sleep Regulates Hematopoietic Stem Cell Trafficking. Nature Communications (*equal)[2]
• Rolls A., Makam M*., Kroeger D., Colas D., de Lecea L., Heller HC. (2013) Sleep to forget: context independent interference with fear during sleep.  Molecular Psychiatry (*equal)[2]
• Rolls A., Colas D, Adamantidis A, Carter M, Lanre-Amos T., Heller HC. de Lecea L. (2011) Optogenetic Disruption of Sleep Continuity Impairs Memory Consolidation. PNAS.[2]
• Shechter R, Baruch K, Schwartz M*, Rolls A. (2010) Touch gives new life: mechanosensation modulates spinal cord adult neurogenesis. Molecular Psychiatry [2]
• Rolls A., Shechter R.*, London A., Segev Y., Jacob-Hirsch J., Amariglio N., Rechavi G. & Schwartz M. (2008) A dual role for chondroitin sulfate proteoglycan in spinal cord repair PLoS Medicine[2]
• Rolls A., Schori H., London A. and Schwartz M. (2008) Decrease in hippocampal neurongenesis during pregnancy. Molecular Psychiatry[2]
• Rolls A., Shechter R.*, London A., Ziv Y., Ronen A., Levy R. and Schwartz M. (2007) Toll-like receptors modulate adult hippocampal neurogenesis. Nature Cell Biology[2]