Neurogastroenterology: WHAT?!?!

Neurogastroenterology: WHAT?!?!

Did u know there are neurons on your heart and intestines? FYI, neurons are brain cells. So what are they doing in your gut? Hmm, maybe now we know the 'real' meaning behind the phrase 'gut feeling?' :) The gut has second most neurons as the brain and is known as the 'second brain.' 

There's a lot of neural tissue filled with important neurotransmitters, which reveals that it does much more than digestion or inflict the occasional nervous pang ('butterflies'. The little brain in our innards, in connection with the big one in our skulls, partly determines our mental state and plays key roles in certain diseases throughout the body.

Technically they're known as the enteric nervous system. The second brain consists of sheaths of neurons embedded in the walls of the long tube of our gut, or alimentary canal, which measures about 30' end to end from the esophagus to Uranus. The second brain contains some 100 million neurons, more than in either the spinal cord or the peripheral nervous system!

Although its influence is far-reaching, the second brain is not the seat of any conscious thoughts or decision-making. SO don't think with your stomach, your eyes probably will be too big for it.

The neurons in the enteric nervous system enable us to "feel" the inner world of our gut and its contents. Much of this neural firepower comes to bear in the elaborate daily grind of digestion. Breaking down food, absorbing nutrients, and expelling of waste requires chemical processing, mechanical mixing and rhythmic muscle contractions that move everything on down the line.

Equipped with its own reflexes and senses, the second brain can control gut behavior independently of the brain. Nerves perform digestion and excretion "on site," rather than remotely from our brains through the middleman of the spinal cord. The enteric nervous system uses more than 30 neurotransmitters, just like the brain, and in fact 95 percent of the body's serotonin is found in the bowels.

SO why do I know this? Trivial pursuit champion? No. I'm always sick so this matters to me. Why? Well, scientists were shocked to learn that about 90 percent of the fibers in the primary visceral nerve, the vagus, carry information from the gut to the brain and not the other way around. God designed my guts to alert my brain something is wrong. Whats wrong is another story!

Its JUST a gut feeling.