I am happy to share this interesting article written by a young high school student Prakash...
“Prakash is a 15-year-old, a junior high school student who is passionate about nature and functions of the brain. He is a staunch believer in implementing what’s learned and learning through self-exploration and experience to incorporate various aspects of learning. As a teenager himself, he is keen on helping his peers on their journey through their teens by sharing teenagers’ perspectives on some of the issues faced and together find their probable solutions. He has also developed an application ‘SOLACE’ related to mental wellness and providing the tools to cope up with stress and anxiety through Music. Like any other teenager, he enjoys playing video games with friends, listens to music, and spend time with animals, plantations, and painting. His goal is to work in the Neuroscience field to understand how memory works.”
I was intrigued to know the role of the heart, whether it was just limited as a pumping station/muscle or has a higher purpose. In the history of evolution, humans are always referred to by their heart e.g., warm-hearted, or cold-hearted person. As we know heart which is one of the most important and vital organs in the body is a muscular organ that is part of the circulatory system and is responsible for pumping blood throughout the body to provide oxygen to the various cells present. But is it just a muscle?
It is scientifically proven that as a response to the feeling of fear, extreme pain, anger, anxiety, or a jump scare situation, our heart rhythm pattern becomes more erratic, and often the heart responds to the release of adrenaline by increasing the heart rate. The increase in the heart rate, in turn, leads to an increase in blood pressure consequently maximizing the blood glucose levels. Blood glucose is primarily sent to the brain (for the purpose of it reacting faster) and also redistributed to the muscles in order to fight-flight or freeze expanding the air passages of the lungs for more oxygen into the body and enlarging the pupil in the eye for increasing the field of vision. These erratic patterns are sent to the emotional centers in the brain, which it perceives as negative or stressful feelings. These signals create the actual feelings we experience in the heart area and the body. The erratic heart rhythms also numb our ability to think clearly.
The heart also responds to excitement, love, compassion, or appreciation the heart produces a different rhythm which creates a feeling of positive emotion by increasing the heart rate in your body just like the flight or fight response. This lets the brain know that the heart feels good and often creates a gentle warm feeling in the area of the heart. Hence, leaving with a feeling to jump up in the air or do a happy dance.
Every human can relate to pain be it physical or emotional in the form of physical discomfort and sadness. Scientists in the past have reported that any form of pain was always perceived by the brain. But with the new research, they have revealed that pain is not only a sensory experience but can also be associated with emotional, cognitive, and social components. Dr. Armour, in 1991, discovered that the heart has its "little brain". This "heart brain" is composed of approximately 40,000 neurons similar to that of the neurons in the brain. It is like, the heart has its own nervous system. Also, the communication between the heart and the brain is carried out in many ways like neurological or biochemical. This "heart brain" carries information from the heart and other internal organs to the brain. Signals from the "heart brain" are redirected to the medulla, hypothalamus, thalamus, and amygdala, and cerebral cortex. Therefore, the heart sends more signals to the brain than vice versa. The heart is not just a pump, it has its neural network or "little brain." The methods such as Vagus nerve stimulation and heart-rhythm coherence feedback techniques targeting the heart to modulate pain regions in the brain. These methods seem to modulate the key changes that occur in the brain regions and are involved in the cognitive and emotional factors of pain. Thus, the heart is probably a key moderator of pain.
The research done in the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences (MPI CBS) explains in a new study “even though humans are mostly not aware of their heartbeats, several heartbeat-related effects have been reported to influence conscious perception." In experiments, they found that volunteers were less likely to detect subtle electrical pulses during one phase of the heartbeat cycle, called systole. During systole, the heart muscle contracts, pumping blood into arteries. In the next cycle, diastole occurs; the heart relaxes after contracting, and its chambers fill up with blood once more.
This revealed that humans exhibit less somatosensory perception – the sensation of things throughout the body – during systole than during diastole.
The heart is both a receiver of emotions as well as an inducer of emotions. Thus, proving that the heart is not just a muscle that pumps blood throughout the body but also that helps in perceiving the world through the variant colors of emotions.
Thank you!
Prakash
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