Gut feeling: Sensory neurons inside the gut inform the vagus nerve (yellow) and bra

Your gut is directly connected to your brain, by a newly discovered neuron circuit

by Emily Underwood

The human gut is lined with more than 100 million nerve cells—it’s practically a brain unto itself. And indeed, the gut actually talks to the brain, releasing hormones into the bloodstream that, over the course of about 10 minutes, tell us how hungry it is, or that we shouldn’t have eaten an entire pizza. But a new study reveals the gut has a much more direct connection to the brain through a neural circuit that allows it to transmit signals in mere seconds. The findings could lead to new treatments for obesity, eating disorders, and even depression and autism—all of which have been linked to a malfunctioning gut.

I wonder if there is any connection to the article
Mediterranean diet 'may help prevent depression'

Eating a Mediterranean diet may help prevent depression, research suggests.

But an expert in metabolic medicine says more rigorous, targeted trials are needed to confirm evidence of the potential link.

The findings, in Molecular Psychiatry, come from a review of 41 studies published within the last eight years.

A plant-based diet of fruit, veg, grains, fish, nuts and olive oil - but not too much meat or dairy - appeared to have benefits in terms of mood.

Your gut is directly connected to your brain, by a newly discovered neuron circuit

by Emily Underwood

If mind is information processing - is the gut (and heart, immune system, +) mindful?

Does gut mentation (mental activity) generate meaningful signals that change real world probabilities?  Are all mentation processes a single system?  Why has the "brain" become the symbol for understanding and rational holistic thoughts?

I think the "gut" has something to say!

How have we lost sight of this?

 Holistic thinking is the inquiry of a complex whole. In the case of business organizations, holistic thinking takes into account its purpose, values, function in its environment, process, and structure. It is the basis for the development of the business design construct , systems thinking , and strategy formation .

If mind is information processing - is the gut (and heart, immune system, +) mindful?

Does gut mentation (mental activity) generate meaningful signals that change real world probabilities?  Are all mentation processes a single system?  Why has the "brain" become the symbol for understanding and rational holistic thoughts?

I think the "gut" has something to say!

How have we lost sight of this?

I'd say from an "Iconic" Idealist perspective, in that the body is what Bernardo would call the "image" (and Hoffman would call the "icon") of the Self, it only makes sense that the body-mind relationship is a holistic system rather than the brain simply being a "CPU" for the rest of the body.

Of course one can make similar correspondences to the mind/body being a locus of information/processing (Integrated Info Theory).

But, either way, as you say we often make distinctions - mind/body, rational/intuition - that might have more to do with our systems of education than reality. After all the ground of Logic/Math is itself arguably a kind of "gut" feeling, one that at least seems to go down to the very Ground of the Real...so much so Plato started with Logic/Geometry and concluded the soul reincarnates across lifetimes, is immortal, etc...

Hey Sci - hope you're keeping well bro!

Thanks for the interesting links and articles, fascinating stuff as always!

I found this article quite significant, for me (although I have been hearing scientific rumblings about there being a "brain" or intelligence in the gut for a few years now).

Should anyone be interested, this scientific research (along with other research in recent years hinting at the same) is of course suggesting nothing new to those who are familiar with the esoteric technologies of Daoism, Tibetan Buddhism, Yoga and the like.

In Daoist and certain Buddhist practices, they call the "intelligence field" of the gut area the "lower dantien" (or lower cinnabar field), and much is made of, at least initially, focusing one's awareness and ground of being in the "hara" or "lower dantien".

As for the vagus nerve, as I understand it this relates in some way to the "kati channel" of the "secret" Tibetan Buddhist meditation practice of Dzogchen.

These traditions have, or at least claim to have, deep understand and experiential awareness of the "intelligence" in the gut (and other "fields" of intelligence in our being), and how to manipulate the body-mind organism to generate exceptional states of consciousness and being, and they've been doing this for thousands of years.

There being recent scientific evidence that electrical stimulation of the vagus nerve causes changes in the gut, which seem to alleviate depression, is not really that much of a surprise to me; indeed, it almost comes across to me as science lagging centuries behind "spiritual technologies" that have been known about by millions of people and for thousands of years!

Cheers 

Fast and hardwired: Gut-brain connection could lead to a "new sense"

by Rich Haridy

The mysteries of our "second brain" are a profound new frontier in 21st century medical science. While research is rapidly discovering amazing connections between our gut and our brain, little is known about how these two distinct parts of the body communicate with each other. A remarkable new study has upturned existing ideas surrounding gut-brain communication, revealing a fast-acting neural circuit allowing gut cells to communicate with the brain in just seconds.

We know several areas in the brain manage feelings of hunger and energy expenditure. The generally accepted hypothesis is that sensory cells in the gut emit certain hormones that interact with parts of the brain letting us know, for example, when we have eaten too much.

But unlike other senses that are communicated with the brain, such as sight or touch, this gut-brain communication process is frustratingly indirect… and slow. The communication delay has increasingly become a source of frustration as more and more research is revealing dramatic connections between our gut and our brain.