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Complex and Hidden Brain in Gut Makes Bellyaches and Butterflies

The gut's brain, known as the enteric nervous system, is located in sheaths of tissue lining the oesophagus, stomach, small intestine and colon. Considered a single entity, it is a network of neurons, neurotransmitters and proteins that zap messages between neurons, support cells like those found in the brain proper and a complex circuitry that enables it to act independently, learn, remember and, as the saying goes, produce gut feelings.

The brain in the gut plays a major role in human happiness and misery. But few people know it exists, said Dr. Michael Gershon, a professor of anatomy and cell biology at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New-York. For years, people who had ulcers, problems swallowing or chronic abdominal pain were told that their problems were imaginary, emotional, simply all in their heads. Dr. Gershon said. They were shuttled to psychiatrists for treatment.

Doctors were right in ascribing these problems to the brain. Dr. Gershon said, but they blamed the wrong one. Many gastro-intestmal disorders like colids and irritable bowel syndrome originate from problems within the gut's brain, he said. And the current wisdom is that most ulcers are caused by a bacterium, not by hidden anger at one's mother.

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In evolutionary terms, it makes sense that the body has two brains, said Dr. David Wingate, a professor of gastrointestinal science at the University of London and a consultant at tlie Royal London Hospital. The first nervous systems were intubular animals that stuck to rocks and waited for food to pass by. Dr. Wingate said. The limbic system is often referred to as the "reptile brain".

As life evolved, animals needed a more complex brain for finding food and sex and so developed a central nervous system. But the gut's nervous system was too important to put inside the newborn head with long connections going down to the body. Dr. Wingate said. O-ffsprmg need to eat and digest food at birth. Therefore, nature seems to have preserved the enteric nervous system as independant circuit. Inside higher animals, it is only loosely connected to the central nervous system and can mostly function alone, without insructions from topside.

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There are several reasons why the enteric nervous system may be regarded as a second brain. The enteric nervous system can operate autonomously. It normally communicates with the CNS through the parasympathetic (eg, via the vagus nerve) and sympathetic (eg, via the prevertebral ganglia) nervous systems. However, vertebrate studies show that when the vagus nerve is severed, the enteric nervous system continues to function.

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Kirtman: As many AYPers have experienced, our entire "internal landscape" evolves (i.e. we feel different, everything seems different, our entire awareness is different) when we tap into the power of a given chakra (when the given chakra "opens", is the colloquial way to say this).

The fact that there are actually "mini-brains" in key organs, which "map" to major chakras which in turn "map" to specific parts of our endocrine system, and specific nerve plexuses (plexi?) -- may help us to understand why and how this (the perceived change of internal landscape / experience, as we move through yogic evolution) is so, from the standpoint of biological science.

Western science "gets the nod" for being able to get much more specific (in terms of defining and analyzing component parts of physical "reality") than yogic science was able to do, thousands of years ago ... but literally "separating out" everything can hit a point of diminishing returns, too -- in terms of sometimes making it hard to see the reality and pragmatic value inherent in unity -- which yoga has always done an excellent job of, as far as I know (and have experienced).

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