[New Tang Dynasty News, Beijing time, February 24, 2024]Hello everyone, I am Fuyao. Welcome to explore the unsolved mysteries with me.
Taoism has always said that “the human body is a small universe.” However, the depth of the mystery of this “small universe” is a long and endless process of exploration in modern scientific research.
For example, in recent years, a topic that has been talked about more and more in the nutrition and medical circles is that the “gut” is the “second brain” of the human body.
Over the past few decades, scientists have studied the relationship between the gut microbial community, the gut flora, and the nervous system. This research is also known as “Gut-Brain Axis Research.” ), discovered the communication methods between the gut and the central nervous system and their mutual influence.
This includes: the impact of gut microbes on health, especially on the immune system; and the interaction between gut microbes and the nervous system. For example, gut microbes communicate with the nervous system in a variety of ways, including neurotransmitters, activating the immune system, and producing metabolites.
The origin of the “gut” being called the “second brain”
From an anatomy, it is not difficult to see that the brain has the highest density of neurons, especially in the cortical area, which is the main area that processes perception, thinking, and movement. The number of neurons is very large. The spinal cord, the key channel that connects the brain to other parts of the body, also contains a large number of neurons, which are responsible for transmitting instructions from the brain and receiving sensory information.
In addition, there is another place in the human body with a very high density of neurons, which is the “gut.” The number of nerve cells in the intestine is second only to that of the brain. Scientific research has found that the intestine is the only internal organ in the human body that can operate independently without being controlled by the brain. The intestinal wall is covered with many neurons.
Interestingly, these neurons form the autonomic nervous system, which scientists describe as an independent “brain”. It is a branch of the central nervous system that is responsible for gastrointestinal activities and can independently manage the human digestive system. This is one of the reasons why the “gut” is called the “second brain” of the human body.
In fact, since ancient times, people have believed that the intestines interact with the brain to affect health or bring disease. But it wasn’t until the last century that scientists began to take a closer look at the connection between the two.
The earliest was an American doctor, Byron Robinson, who published the book “The Abdominal and Pelvic Brain” in 1907; in the same era, in 1921, the British Physiologist The scientist Dr. Johannis Langley discovered the nerve plexus in the gut and coined the term “enteric nervous system.”
Around that time, scientists began to clearly understand that the enteric nervous system could operate autonomously; even if its main connection to the brain, the vagus nerve, was severed, it could still regulate the digestive process.
Despite these important discoveries, academic interest in the “brain in the gut” waned until the 1990s, when a field called neurogastroenterology emerged.
Michael Gershon, chairman of the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology at Columbia University, revisited this topic in 1996 and introduced the concept of the “second brain” in the stomach.
While the digestive system and the brain do have many similarities, they also have many differences. The brain has cognitive functions, learning and memory, advanced neural activities, and emotional regulation functions that the digestive system does not have. Therefore, some scientists believe that it is not accurate to say that the intestines and stomach are the “second brain.”
Let’s not discuss the name for now. Let’s first take a look at what this independently operating “second brain” does.
What is the independent “second brain” doing?
In his in-depth research on neurogastroenterology, an emerging discipline at the time, scientist Gerson discovered that this guy called the “second brain” is actually a general term for the gastrointestinal nervous system, which has approximately One hundred million nerve cells are in charge of the human digestive system.
Gerson described this “second brain” as being like a library that stores the body’s responses to all mental processes and can retrieve these messages whenever needed and pass them on to the brain. It monitors gastric activity and digestive processes.
He also discovered that this “second brain” can observe food characteristics, regulate digestion speed, speed up or slow down the secretion of digestive juices, etc. Its operation process adopts the same complex feedback method as the brain commanding the limbs, but it is completely independent of the brain.
We now know that the enteric nervous system not only functions autonomously but also influences the brain. In fact, about 90% of the signals transmitted by the vagus nerve do not come from the “top brain”, but from the “second brain”-the enteric nervous system.
The intestines also undertake many functions of human health and are the largest “sewage plant, gas station, and immune organ” of the human body.
Have you noticed that when people are in a bad mood or feel stressed, some people crave high-calorie foods, especially sweets. This correlation between emotion and appetite shows that research has found that it is largely emotions that cause the intestinal flora to become imbalanced, and the composition of the intestinal flora changes, leading to changes in food choices.
So when you choose to eat a certain food, it may not be that you need or want to eat it, but the flora sends a wrong signal to the brain, and the brain controls you to eat this food.
The intestine is the largest endocrine organ of the human body. Dozens of hormones secreted by the gastrointestinal tract are widely distributed on the wall of the gastrointestinal tract and participate in the regulation of different functions. The hormones dopamine and serotonin are closely related to sensation.
Dopamine is a key substance that affects people’s mood. People’s depression, world-weariness, loss of interest in things, and lack of energy are mostly symptoms of low dopamine levels in the body. Serotonin can make people feel happy. When there is insufficient serotonin in the body, people will become irritable and easily lose their mind.
Research data shows that the brain secretes only 5% of serotonin in the body, while 95% of serotonin is synthesized in the intestines.
The digestive system of the intestine has such a huge impact on people’s mental health. It’s no wonder that some scientists call it the “second brain.”
The “second brain” can also feel depression and sadness
From the above, it is not difficult to see that human emotions are closely related to the intestines, this “second brain”. No wonder people say that the place where the human body understands emotions best is actually not the brain, but hidden in the stomach. Do you believe?
The ancient Chinese recorded this in the “Nei Jing”, “Anger hurts the liver, joy hurts the heart, thought hurts the spleen, sadness hurts the lungs, and fear hurts the kidneys.” In other words, people’s various bad emotions will directly affect different organs of the human body, and the generation of these bad emotions is related to the “second brain”. There is a certain corresponding relationship between human emotions and the organs of the human body, and lesions in one organ will also affect other organs.
Modern Western scientific research has slowly realized the connection. Especially in the process of studying the intestinal system, scientists have discovered that this “second brain” can indeed affect people’s various emotions such as joy, anger, sorrow, and joy.
The “second brain” not only has memory function, but also has emotional responses like the brain. Moreover, they are interconnected with the brain. If one goes wrong, the other will also be affected. For example, worry, depression, irritability, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS); ulcers and Parkinson’s disease can also be manifested in the brain and digestive system. Doctors have found that 25% of patients taking antidepressants have stomach pain; stress can in turn stimulate the nerves in the esophagus, leading to a feeling of suffocation, among other symptoms.
Scientists have discovered that people who have experienced pain such as life and death while growing up are more likely to suffer from gastrointestinal diseases than the average person when they grow up. For example, Gerson once found that about 70% of patients with chronic gastrointestinal diseases experienced grief such as parental divorce, chronic illness, or the death of a parent when they were growing up.
In addition, the “second brain” can also dream. When a person is sleeping without dreams, the gastrointestinal organs perform gentle and rhythmic wave movements; but when dreaming, the internal organs begin to tremble violently. People often have nightmares if they don’t eat well, and many patients with gastrointestinal disorders always complain of not being able to sleep well.
Scientists are currently using the “second brain” and biofeedback therapy to enable patients to rely on the mental function of the brain to strengthen their gastrointestinal functions and achieve remarkable results.
It seems that if any organ of the human body fails, removing it will solve the problem; problems with one organ will also affect other organs; problems with one organ may also be caused by problems with other organs.
It’s also very important to protect your “second brain”
As scientists conduct in-depth research on the interaction between the intestinal tract and the nervous system, people have a deeper understanding of the connections between different systems of the human body. Various tissues and systems of the human body are interconnected, influence each other, and cooperate closely, and they can operate independently. The human body is really mysterious, isn’t it?
I believe that by understanding why the intestines are called the “second brain” of humans, we also understand that it is very important to eat well, eat healthily, and protect your own intestinal system. At the same time, learning to regulate our emotions and maintaining a peaceful and calm mind at all times is also an important means to maintain intestinal health.
We have also seen from this that no matter how advanced modern science is, it can only conduct research on our current body in the superficial material space. There are still too many mysteries of the human body waiting for scientists and medical researchers to explore.
It seems that the Taoist statement that “the human body is a small universe” is not mysterious.
Okay, that’s it for today’s story. My name is Fuyao in “Unsolved Mysteries”. See you next time.
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Produced by the program team of “Unsolved Mysteries”
(Editor: Li Hong)
2024-02-24 06:48:09
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