Heart and Brain
Dr. Omar Shabsigh
Abstract
The subject where all thoughts, feelings and understanding happen is something that intrigued me for a long time. This article will discuss if all these actions are connected only to the brain.
1- Present status
To my knowledge the question of if it is only the brain that takes care of cognition (thought, feelings, understanding) has not been completely solved yet. Professor Rupert Sheldrake[i] tried to give some hints.
As scientists and doctors assumed since a long time that the brain is the center of all human activities, we have neurologists dealing with this question and they concentrate on the brain. Extensive research has been done and is still going on the functions of the brain. Even when neurology stumbles on an obstacle, It does not try to find answers elsewhere. They go on try to find a solution connected to the brain .
Notwithstanding the advances in neurology, it could not solve what I shall call cognitive activities such as thinking, understanding and feeling.
2- Some phenomena:
Let us ask ourselves a few questions:
a) When you are happy, where do you feel the joy? The answer will not be that what you feel is in your brain but certainly in your chest – in your heart.
b) The same question if applied to other feelings such as anger, sadness…..the answer will be the same: in your heart.
c) When reading a book or listening to a talk, where do you believe that you understand? Again your finger will indicate your chest – heart.
d) And last how about thinking? Can it be in the heart?
e) Why is it that in common–use lay language in all languages that I know (8 of them), the heart plays a major role. People say: he or she has a broken heart, the heart is full of joy or sadness, the heart is in pain…..etc. This is used by even people who do not have an advanced written civilization. This phenomenon cannot be just any talk. It reflects thousands of years of experience of the human being.
3. Medical science’s view:
If you start asking the above question to most of the medical community, you will always get the following answer:”nothing changes in the human being even after a heart transplant operation. He is still the same person.”
However, the medical community by saying that, are neglecting many facts.
Let us take a look at who takes care of a person who underwent a heart operation or had a heart transplant: it is the cardiologist. He is interested only in the proper function of the heart as a blood pump, nothing else. He did not know the character of the patient before the operation nor does he care about it after. That means he cannot sense the differential of the character before and after.
The surgeon who performed the operations is interested only in restoring blood circulation.
This shows that there is a missing medical link in dealing with the patient.
I made studies on some patients that underwent heart surgeries either by asking them or investigating with their families. In all cases, the respondents said that they suffered different degrees of change of feelings, sentiments and character with others having irrational thoughts that were not with them before.
I am not a specialist in medicine I am just noticing things. The truth is that there is a change in the cognitive functions of people after an open heart surgery or a heart transplant.
4- Analogy with computers
All equipment , whether electric or mechanical need controllers to adjust the work of the equipment. Such controllers could be as simple as switches and pushbuttons on the front panel of an electronic oscilloscope for example. The computer has a sophisticated controller circuit which controls flow of information and connections among the different parts of the computer: processor, memory, input/output devices…etc.
Looking back at the phenomena above, we can rightly say that both the brain and the heart are controllers of the body.
But where does the processing happen?
5- Recent research
Lately new research started to show new evidence of the heart cognitive functions.
a) Mohamed Ghlian [ii] in his paper “Intelligence: Is It In The Brain Or The Heart?” states:
The heart has its own nervous system that is composed of approximately 40,000 neurons. These neurons are connected differently and more elaborately than elsewhere in the body and while they’re capable of detecting circulating chemicals sent from the brain and other organs, they operate independently in their own right. Having it’s own “mini-brain” is the reason why heart transplants work, given the fact that severed nerve connections do not reconnect in a different body. Furthermore, this elaborate nervous centre in the heart has more functions than simply regulating the electrical activities of the heart to keep it pumping.
Dr. J. Andrew Armour is a neurocardiologist that has shown some fascinating facts about the heart’s nervous system. You can review his book “Neurocardiology: Anatomical & Functional Principles” if you’re interested in the technical details. For example, while the heart can be influenced by messages sent from the brain, it doesn’t necessarily obey it all the time. Furthermore, the heart’s “mini-brain” can send its own signals to the brain and exercise its influence on it. To give one illustration: oxytocin, which is typically referred to as the “love hormone”, has been shown to be released not only from the brain, but also from the heart. Oxytocin is not only important for love and bonding, especially for pregnant and lactating mothers, but it also has roles in social behavior, wound healing, learning, memory, and empathy. In short, it’s one hormone that affects a very wide variety of important functions.
It’s generally assumed that learning and memory are a central nervous system function. Meaning, this is a function for that organ inside our heads. However, due to some bizarre, controversial and anomalous observations, there is a growing push towards a systemic memory mechanism. In other words, not to limit intelligence functions to the brain. This came from observations in organ transplant patients – more specifically, heart-transplant recipients.
In a study from 2002, researchers from the University of Arizona and University of Hawaii collaborated to publish a paper titled “Changes in Heart Transplant Recipients that Parallel the Personalities of their Donors”. Ten recipients who received heart or heart-lung transplants underwent evaluation through a series of open-ended interviews. These interviews involved the transplant recipients, recipient families or friends, and donor families or friends, in hospitals in various parts of the US. Several parallels were being investigated including, changes in food, music, art, sexual, recreational, and career preferences, as well as specific instances of perceptions of names and sensory experiences related to the donors.
The interview transcripts are beyond astounding to read. There was a case of a straight vegetarian health-consious donor that turned a militant gay McDonalds-loving recipient into a straight vegetarian health food seeking person after the transplant. Another case was of a young donor who was a violin musician that made the older classical-music-hating recipient all of a sudden want to listen to hours of it after surgery. A third case was of a young woman who was a “hell-raiser” all of a sudden picking up her donor’s love for music and poetry. She was even able to finish the words to his songs, which she never heard before. A funny one was the 47-year-old man receiving the heart of a 14-year-old girl injured in a gymnastics accident. His wife commented at how he changed after surgery, “Gus is a teenager. No doubt about that. He’s a kid – or at least he thinks he’s a kid. Even when we’re bowling, he yells and jumps around like a fool. He’s got this weird laugh now. It’s a girl’s laugh and we tell him that. He doesn’t care.”
This study is only an example of many others. Overall, the researchers here found that on average, the recipients picked up two to five parallels per case from the ones they investigated. This is a very high transfer of personality traits that immunosuppressant drugs, stress of surgery, and statistical coincidence cannot explain.
And the question that poses itself in turn becomes:
Is the heart our organ of intelligence, while the brain is our organ of cognition?
b) A paper from the Heart Math Institute [iii] “How the Human Heart Functions as a Second Brain” states:
The human heart is the organ that generates the strongest electromagnetic field of any organ of the human body? In fact, the electromagnetic field of your heart can be measured up to a few feet away from your body. Furthermore, this energy field changes in relation to your emotions. One thing you should know about electromagnetic field is that every organ and cell in your body generate an energy field.
Because the heart generates the strongest electromagnetic field, the information stored in its electromagnetic field affects every organ and cell in your body. Could this be why the heart is the first organ to function in a fetus? Besides generating the strongest electromagnetic field, the heart has an intelligence of its own, which is why certain neurocardiologists refer to it as the heart-brain or the fifth brain.
According to neurocardiologists, the heart is not only made of muscle cells but also neurons. Researchers at the Institute of HeartMath have done experiments proving that the heart’s role is not limited to just pumping blood. They believe it has intelligence and plays a major role in the perception of reality.
According to neurocardiologists, 60 to 65 percent of heart cells are neuron cells, not muscle cells.1This discovery has helped them to develop experiments that have proved the heart works similar to the brain and in some ways is even superior to the brain. This may be the reason why the heart is the first organ to function after conception. Within about 20 days after conception the heart starts to function, but the brain does not function until after roughly 90 days. This information tells us that the brain is secondary to the heart.
The Heart, Brain, and Feelings
The brain and the heart are sometimes said to work in opposition. We are constantly trying to determine whether to place more emphasis on our thoughts or feelings. Rational people would say that the mind is the key to keeping us out of trouble, as the mind thinks in terms of what has the most payoff and is quite possible the safest or most calculated risk.
Many physiological studies are currently being done regarding the interconnection of the heart and the brain, and why certain sensations and feelings are experienced at the level of the heart. Generally, love and certain emotional states are felt at the heart level, producing different physiological reactions of the heart.
Connecting the brain and the heart as its own emotional processing center is a topic that many researchers are focusing on.
Corollary
Most probably all feelings and sentiments are in the heart. Neurologists and neurocardiologists and others should focus on the facts shown in this research paper. Benefits to humanity in this direction are immense
References
[i] Rupert Sheldrake, 2004; Science Set Free
[ii] Mohamed Ghlian, 2012; Intelligence: Is It In The Brain Or The Heart?
[iii] Heart Math Institute,2016; How the Human Heart Functions as a Second Brain