One System, PsycheSomaWorld

The brain is part of the body and is in control of itself and the rest of the body. The basic idea behind human and other animal brains is to bring information about the outside world together with information from inside the body. In the human mind, images of the outside tend to be detailed and explicit in consciousness. In contrast, monitor images from inside the body are vague and variable. Feelings and body sensations bubble up, as if from below consciousness and disappear. The goal of brains is to bring bodyspace and worldspace into a congruent relationship repeatedly everyday by generating drive states and monitoring the chemical input into bodyspace from worldspace.

This is the key algorithm for life that must be understood before animal and human behavior makes sense. When you need food, you go out and find something to eat. When you are full, you stop seeking food and go on to the next need. When you are thirsty, you find water and drink it. Bodyspace has needs and drives. Worldspace has goods and gratification. The brain task is to match them. Events in bodyspace are monitored in consciousness as feelings. Events in world space are monitored in consciousness as events- perceptions and cognition. Emotions are generated when drives are generated, satisfied or blocked. You are hungry and there is no food, so you get angry or start to cry.  Emotions are behaviors that amplify small needs into large events with lasting consequences.

Bodyspace is still primitive and ancient chemical messages remain the basic form of communication. There are several classes of chemical messengers: amino acids, hormones, peptides, neurotransmitters and cytokines (produced by immune cells). The brain sends and receives chemical messages and these are as potent in determining mental states as they are in regulating organ function in the body.

While all feelings are felt in the brain and all emotions are organized in the brain, the body fully participates in sending and receiving information. The dyad of the sympathetic nervous system organizing fight and flight and the parasympathetic organizing rest, digestion and regeneration is basic to the positive and negative range of human feelings. The chemical of fight and flight is adrenalin (epinephrine) and the chemical of rest and recuperation is acetylcholine.

Vision, hearing and smell are distance senses that inform about events far away.  Sensors on the surface of the body inform about close contacts. Sensors in muscles and joints inform about our movement in space-time and provide information about contact with the ground.  Sense receptors inside the body are of various kinds and are not clearly represented in consciousness.

Inner sensors are providing information to the brain about conditions in the body and feedback to inform the brain about the consequences of actions taken.  Inner senses belong to two groups - the most ancient chemical kind and a more modern and rapid electronic kind. The digestive tract for example is supplied with dense innervation. The main processing task of the brain in to generate behaviors that satisfy needs, Behaviors are interaction with the outside that manifest inside conditions. The brain decides when more water is needed, lets you know with thirst, and generates behaviors to locate and drink liquids that contain water. Psyche and soma are synchronized and linked. The communications between brain centers and the rest of the body are complex and overlapping. Chemical messages are broadcast both ways by substances secreted into the blood. Brainbodymind communications are in the form of feedback loops. Messages are sent and replies are received. It would be difficult and unwise to argue that any part of this complex network originates messages since at any moment, if you could tune into the traffic of information, you would find continuous and recursive, looping messages.

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Human Brain in Health and Disease

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The Human Brain in Health and Disease, 2010, is a Persona Digital Book. We encourage readers to quote and paraphrase topics from Human Brain in Health and Disease published online and expect proper citations to accompany all derivative writings. The author is Stephen Gislason and the publisher is Persona Digital Publications. The date of publication is 2010. The URL to the book description is Human Brain