2026-07-072026-07-07http://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/88197Examining elevated rates of systemic lupus erythematosus in African-American women from perspectives of immune cognition suggests the disease constitutes an internalized physiological image of external structured psychosocial stress, a 'pathogenic social hierarchy' involving the synergism of racism and gender discrimination in the context of policy-driven social disintegration which has particularly affected ethnic minorities in the USA. The disorder represents the punctuated resetting of normal immune self-image to a self-attacking excited state, a process formally analogous to models of punctuated equilibrium in evolutionary theory. Both onset and progression of disease may be stratified by a relation to cyclic physiological responses which are long in comparison with heartbeat period: circadian, hormonal, and annual light/termperature cycles.18 pages, 1 figureNeurons and CognitionMolecular Networkstext