ABSTRACT
There have been experimental studies examining how the quantitative magnitude of some variables, such as the concentration of antigen, determines the kind of response induced. These studies reveal that the immune response is very coherently regulated. Coherence must impose restraints on possible models of cellular regulation. In this chapter, the author describes some examples of this coherence, and their implication for cellular regulation, as well as some ideas on the "decision criteria" embedded in the cellular circuits of the immune system. He attempts to experimentally test the validity of these proposed decision criteria. This gives rise to a partial description of cellular interactions that is in conflict with decision criteria proposed by others. Richard Gershon describes the cellular interactions he believed to be involved in specifically inhibiting the humoral response. Interactions between 11 subclasses of regulatory T cell are outlined.
