Quick Hits
Daily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences
The gut-brain axis
Just after publishing the article on Serotonin and stating that the gut and brain’s serotonin systems can be considered separate entities, out comes a piece of research to show that they are not separate entities.
Indeed, it is known that there is a gut-brain connection that I have also reported on multiple times previously. But researchers are still often in the dark as to how and in what different ways the gut and brain communicate with each other. These researchers at Flinders University developed a new neural tracing technique that helped to investigate this.
They found that the enterochromaffin cells that line the gut and are known to responds to and release neurotransmitters based on stimuli from what is in the gut, communicate to nerve endings. This, through process of diffusion (they are not directly connected to the central nervous system), stimulate pathways that go to the spinal cord and brain.
This therefore strengthens our knowledge of how this happens but also to expand healthcare into more holistic and positive (and potentially more effective and cheaper ways). This suggests, you can eat yourself to better mental health, to a degree at least.
Andy Habermacher
Andy is author of leading brains Review, Neuroleadership, and multiple other books. He has been intensively involved in writing and research into neuroleadership and is considered one of Europe’s leading experts. He is also a well-known public speaker speaking on the brain and human behaviour.
Andy is also a masters athlete (middle distance running) and competes regularly at international competitions (and holds a few national records in his age category).
Reference
Kelsi Nicole Dodds, Lee Travis, Melinda A. Kyloh, Lauren A Jones, Damien John Keating, Nick J Spencer.
The gut-brain axis: spatial relationship between spinal afferent nerves and 5-HT-containing enterochromaffin cells in mucosa of mouse colon.
American Journal of Physiology-Gastrointestinal and Liver Physiology, 2022;
DOI: 10.1152/ajpgi.00019.2022
More Quick Hits
Babies born with five from seven functional brain networks
In the 1950s the blank slate theory was the most prominent theory ascribed to babies. They are born blank slates and then their experiences allow them to develop their networks thoughts, associations, etc., and just about everything else. Though this theory is long...
Your brain on near-death experiences
Near-death experiences have fascinated many people ever since they have been reported. And these experiences guide our view of how we die: the memories of your life passing in front of your eyes, the tunnel of light, the floating movement towards a bright light....
Social networks grow your brain
The headline is a bit “click baity” but it is what a group of researchers found. To be more specific they found in macaques (cute monkeys) in the wild that having more grooming partners grew different regions of the brain. Grooming is the primate version of having a...
What do creative brains look like?
We’d probably all be happy to be a bit more creative — though research into our own opinions show that many people do actually consider themselves to be above average in creativity. An obvious self-bias. This is where scientists who study creativity come in and find...
New gender biases discovered
There have been many studies on gender biases, and I have followed, written, and spoken about many of these biases over the years (over a decade actually) but two studies have just come out that caught my eye. One out of New York University focused on gender natural...
Growth of your brain over your life
So, we all know that our brain grows very quickly as babies and children and then after a certain age, younger than some of us may like to think, there begins a slow decline. But precisely what and how is the question. Well, this is a question that an international...