EMOTIONS AND THE BRAIN

SCIENCE CATCHES UP WITH LUCRETIUS

Dr. J. Andrew Armour, M.D., Ph. D., University of Montreal has been studying the nervous system and the heart; he's a neurocardiologist.

This is important because the heart is often affected adversely by the stress of our current lifestyles, particularly so in men.

Stress assaults our mental, physical and emotional well-being, costing millions of dollars in healthcare, and lost wages to the individual, and lost profit and diminished productivity to the corporation.

ONE REASON WE CONCENTRATE ON EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE IS FOR OUR HEALTH.

We've talked about "adrenal fatigue syndrome before." As Dr, Armour confirms, extended stress over long periods "results in prolonged activation of the sympathetic nervous system, which, in turn, can lead to a variety of pathologies. One frequently encountered pathological state is altered cardiac function, which can culminate in events such as sudden cardiac death."

"In fact," he adds, "a recent United Nations World Bank study identified heart disease as the leading cause of death throughout the world, even in financially underdeveloped regions. The incidence of ischemic heart disease is especially high among lower socioeconomic groups."

Most cardiologists have focused on the plumbing aspects of cardiovascular disease, while he has chosen to docus on what he calls the "neuronal mechanisms," the neurocardiological aspects of heart disease.

In his own research, he is finding evidence that complex and synergistic interactions occur between neurons in the brain and in the heart. "For example," he writes, there has been a tendency to assume that the brain is the primary source of neuronal input controlling the rhythmic activity of the heart. Although brain (central) neurons certainly are involved in cardiac rhythmicity, equally important are afferent neuronal signals arising from the heart that affect neurons not only in the central nervous system, but also in ganglia located in the thorax and in the heart itself."

Well, I can't say I get everything he has said, but I 'get' the next part, and so will you, because you've heard this before re: the vagus nerve. The heart effectively possesses its own "little brain," and this has major implications with respect to neuronal interactions involved in reglating cardiac function."

As we study emotional intelligence, the more we try and tease apart variables, the more intertwined they seem to become, and we return to sages like Lucretirus.

Neurocardiologists are now finding a sophisticated two-way communication system exists between heart and brain, each influencing the function of the other, just as gastroenterologists have discovered between the brain and the gut, and that psychoneuroimmunologists have discvered between the brain and the immune system.

This fits too, with the article we printed earlier where people exposed to terrible shocks were showing up in the ER with "broken hearts," i.e., symptoms of heart attack in an otherwise healthy heart.

Stay tuned for more on this.
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