Mind Power News
Friday, April 16, 2004/ Issue No. 39/ © 2004 by Andreas Ohrt
www.mindpowernews.com

This week:

The Source of Your "Gut-Level" Feelings: You actually have as many brain cells in your gut as you do in your skull.

The Wisdom of the Gut: Embedded within the wall of the gut is a self-contained, self-regulating nervous system that can function on its own, without the help of the brain or the spinal cord.

Scientists Discover "Second Brain" in the Stomach: This 'second brain' is made up of a knot of brain nerves in the digestive tract. It is thought to involve around 100 billion nerve cells - more than held in the spinal cord.

The Source of Your "Gut-Level" Feelings

By Dr. Jill Ammon-Wexler
www.quantum-self.com

"You actually have as many brain cells in your gut... as you do in your skull!"

Ever had a physical sensation something wasn’t quite right? Or perhaps an odd feeling that a situation was somehow dangerous? Or have you had “butterflies” in your stomach just before an important meeting or situation?

That was your second brain in action...

“My second brain?” you ask.

Yes. Unknown to most people, we actually have two physical brains. You’re intimately familiar with the brain encased in your skull. But did you know you also have a second brain in your gut?

Actually, over one half of your nerve cells are located in your gut. And you may be even more surprised to learn that your second “gut brain” contains neurons and neurotransmitters just like those found in your skull.

And here’s something that may come as even more of a shock

Just like your primary brain, your “gut brain” is also able to learn, remember, and produce emotion-based feelings. The expression “gut-level feeling” isn’t just a “saying.” We really do have feelings in our gut.

Our two brains communicate back and forth via a major nerve trunk extending down from the base of your brain all the way down into your abdomen. Because of this connection, your two brains directly influence each other.

When one brain becomes upset, the other joins right in. That’s why your stomach might get “fluttery” because of anxiety before an important
meeting. Or why a late night spicy snack that’s hard on your stomach might also give you some nasty nightmares.

The Mystery of the Second Brain
How do we happen to have two brains?

During early fetal development both your “gut” (esophagus, stomach, small intestine and colon) and your primary brain started to develop from the same clump of embryonic tissue.

When that piece of tissue divided, one piece grew into your central nervous system (your brain and cranial nerves). The other section became your enteric nervous system (your “gut brain.”)

During a later stage of fetal development, these two brains then became connected via a massive nerve: the vagus nerve. The vagus nerve is the longest of all our cranial nerves, and creates a direct connection between your brain and your gut.

Because of this direct brain-gut connection, the state of your gut has a profound influence on your psychological well being.

How it Works
Your “gut brain,” known to scientists as the enteric nervous system (ENS), is embedded in the sheaths of tissue lining your esophagus, stomach, small intestine and colon.

And, nearly every brain-regulating chemical found in your brain has also been discovered in your gut brain -- including both hormones and neurotransmitters.

In “The Second Brain,” Dr. Michael Gershon, a professor at New York City’s Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, refers to the entire gastrointestinal system as “the body's second nervous system.”

"The brain is not the only place in the body that's full of neurotransmitters,” Dr. Gershon explains. "One hundred million neurotransmitters line the length of the gut -- approximately the same number found in the brain."

Actually, the total of nerve cells in your gut is greater than the total nerves connecting the rest your body to your brain. This complex circuitry allows your “gut brain”to act totally independent of the brain in your skull.

Your “Sleep-Gut Brain” Connection
As research on the circuitry between our two brains progresses, neuro-scientists are understanding more and more about how we act and feel.

For example: Our brain and gut are so interconnected that both have natural 90-minute “sleep cycles.” In the brain, slow-wave sleep is interrupted by periods of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep during which dreams occur.

The gut has corresponding 90-minute cycles of slow-wave muscle contractions. But as with the brain’s REM sleep intervals, these cycles are interrupted by corresponding short bursts of rapid muscle movement.

Your “Stress-Gut Brain” Connection
Hardly anything needs be said about the connection between stress and our gut. In many ways, this may be the most visible brain-gut problem of our times.

Anyone who has ever become emotionally upset knows the immediate effect on their gut. Your stomach “ties itself in knots,” rumbles and growls, and stops digesting.

The results include chronic indigestion, ulcers, and a whole host of unpleasant conditions. And if the stress is chronic or intense enough, your colon may even go into spasms.

Your “Pain-Gut Brain” Connection
But our “gut brains” also help us in some amazing ways. They are a primary source of pain relief. The “gut brain” naturally produces chemicals (benzodiazepine) found in many pain relievers, and in anti-anxiety drugs like Valium.

And like your primary brain, your “gut brain” also has opiate receptors.

“Drugs like morphine and heroin also attach to the gut's opiate receptors,” pain management specialist Dr Michael Loes tells us. “And both brains can
become addicted to opiates."

Mastering Your “Gut Brain”
Many mystical and natural healing practices consider the belly to be a major center of energy and higher consciousness.

In China, the gentle arts of Tai Chi and Qigong emphasize the lower abdomen as a major reservoir for life energy and health. The belly is considered the “dantian” -- a key center for higher consciousness development.

It’s important to get your “gut brain” operating at its best. Start by paying attention to what’s happening in your digestive system. Remember, your gut is about a whole lot more than just digesting your food -- it also reacts to and digests your inward and outward “realities.”

By Dr. Jill Ammon-Wexler. Visit Quantum-Self.com for original inspirational articles and science news, free self tests, brain quizzes, and the web’s best mind-building tools.


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The Wisdom of the Gut
Those butterflies in your stomach are not just in your mind

By Rachel K. Sobel
U.S. News & World Report

In 1917, German scientist Paul Trendelenburg huddled over a test tube in his three-story laboratory, prodding a small section of tissue submerged in the body's natural juices. Forced to stay home from the war because of tuberculosis, this budding pharmacologist poured his energies into designing the experiment that would prove what his scientific forefathers had suspected for years. Embedded within the wall of the gut, he would show, was a self-contained, self-regulating nervous system that could function on its own, without the help of the brain or the spinal cord. The gut, in short, had a mind of its own.

For reasons that still mystify researchers today, the stunning results of this experiment went into hibernation for nearly half a century and are only now receiving fresh validation. Indeed, no one in medicine paid attention again until a fledgling neurobiologist began touting its clinical value in 1965. "The idea that the gut can be operating its own nervous system was shocking," recalls Michael Gershon, now chair of the department of anatomy and cell biology at Columbia University and author of The Second Brain, a 1998 account of the acceptance of this scientific idea. Since the 1980s, Gershon's colleagues have zealously embraced the notion of "the little brain in the gut," as it's affectionately known. "What Mother Nature had done, rather than packing all of those neurons in the big brain in the skull and sending long lines to the gut, is distribute the microcomputer, the little brain, right along with the gut," says Jackie Wood, a neurobiologist at Ohio State University.

By peeling away the layers of padding that surround the digestive tract, scientists have indeed unearthed some of the buried secrets of the little brain. This miniature central processing unit, whose 100 million-plus nerves number more than those in the spinal cord, carries out many of its daily chores without guidance from the brain. "Suppose the gut gets a message that the pressure is up in the stomach. The brain doesn't get its hands dirty with that kind of nonsense–so the gut takes care of it," explains Gershon. Not only does the gut direct its own show, he adds, but its spidery projections trickle into neighboring organs, commanding the pancreas and gallbladder to aid with digestion.

Though able to run itself, the little brain does stay in close touch with the big brain via 1,000 or so nerve fibers. Scientists studying this relationship have discovered that the gut-brain connection is at the heart of some of the most visceral human emotions. A "gut feeling," for example, isn't just a poetic conceit used to convey intuition. It arises from the biological interplay between these two intimately connected brains, says Emeran Mayer, a gastroenterologist and professor of physiology at the University of California-Los Angeles. When faced with an anxiety-ridden situation, the big brain sends urgent messages to the little brain, which begins orchestrating a physical response, read as gurgling or "butterflies" in the stomach. These sensations are recorded in an "emotional memory bank" residing in the big brain, says Mayer, and the next time the big brain makes a decision in a similar situation, it's not based on some intellectual calculation. Rather, it's instantaneously formulated from this catalog of previous bodily responses–"gut feelings"–stored in the brain.

Why some people feel the burden of stress in their gut–and not for instance, in their heart–can also be explained by the close communication between the brain and the gut. When the big brain consciously perceives a stressful situation, it calls on its fraternal twin through specialized cells–called mast cells–embedded in the gut's lining. These mast cells secrete a chemical called histamine, which activates the nerves controlling the gut, telling the muscles to contract. Hence, the cramps and bathroom trips so often associated with bouts of stress.

The complex circuitry in the gut not only operates like a brain; it looks uncannily similar to one, too. Just like the nerves in the brain and spinal cord, those in the gut are naked, lacking an insulating sheath that wraps around the rest of the body's nerves. Swishing among the gut's nerves are serotonin, nitric oxide, carbon monoxide, and at least 30 other neurochemicals–the same ones sloshing around in the skull. Curiously enough, as healthy brains in the head and gut resemble each other, so too do diseased ones. Scientists have found that some Alzheimer's and Parkinson's patients accumulate the same type of tissue damage in their bowels as they do in their skulls, raising the possibility that these disorders might someday be diagnosed by routine rectal biopsy.

Many investigators are taking their cues in treating gut disorders from drugs that have worked on the brain. For example, Michael Camilleri, a gastroenterologist at the Mayo Clinic, is treating a variety of gastrointestinal disorders with Clonidine, a drug sometimes used in psychiatry. Another medication called Imitrex, customarily used to soothe the pangs of migraine headaches, has effectively healed the gut in two studies by Belgian teams. And Lotronex, the recently released treatment for irritable-bowel syndrome, came from an anti-anxiety drug.

Source: U.S. News & World Report

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Scientists Discover 'Second Brain' in the Stomach

Scientists are claiming to have discovered a second brain - in the human stomach.

The breakthrough, involving experts in the US and Germany, is believed to play a major part in the way people behave.

This 'second brain' is made up of a knot of brain nerves in the digestive tract. It is thought to involve around 100 billion nerve cells - more than held in the spinal cord.

Researchers believe this belly brain may save information on physical reactions to mental processes and give out signals to influence later decisions. It may also be responsible in the creation of reactions such as joy or sadness.

The research is outlined in the latest issue of German science magazine, Geo, in which Professor Wolfgang Prinz, of the Max Planck Institute for Psychological Research in Munich, says the discovery could give a new twist on the old phrase "gut reaction".

He said: "People often follow their gut reactions without even knowing why, its only later that they come up with the logical reason for acting the way they did. But we now believe that there is a lot more to gut feelings than was previously believed."

Professor Prinz thinks the stomach network may be the source for unconscious decisions which the main brain later claims as conscious decisions of its own.

The second brain was rediscovered by Michael Gershorn, of the University of Colombia in New York, after it was forgotten by science. He says it was first documented by a 19th century German neurologist, Leopold Auerbach.

He discovered two layers of nerve cells near a piece of intestine he was dissecting. After putting them under the microscope he found they were part of a complex network.

Recent research has already raised the idea that many reactions may be made in the stomach. Benjamin Libet, of the University of California found the brains of volunteers asked to raise their arms only registered activity about half a second after the movement had been made. He believes his work implies another part of the body may have been involved in making the decision.

Source: Ananova

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