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Soothing the skin can help reduce eczema flare ups. Credit: Ladanifer/iStock via Getty

For people with eczema, stress can trigger flare ups and worsen their itchy rashes. But the link between stress and skin inflammation has been unclear.

Now, researchers have identified a network of neurons that respond to stress by activating immune cells in the skin, fuelling eczema symptoms1.

The findings, published in Science today, come from a mouse model of atopic dermatitis (AD) — a type of chronic eczema that affects more than 200 million people worldwide.

Read the paper: Maternal stress triggers early-life eczema through fetal mast cell programming

Stress can cause eczema to flare-up – now we know why