Computational Psychiatry, Self-Care, and The Mind-Body Problem

Schematic example of how the “mind” (cerebral cortex) is connected to the “body” (adrenal gland) - modified from Fig. 1 (Dum et al., 2016):“Modern medicine has generally viewed the concept of‘psychosomatic’disease with suspicion. This view arose partly because no neural networks were known for the mind, conceptually associated with the cerebral cortex, to influence autonomic and endocrine systems that control internal organs. ”Psychosomatic illnesses are typically seen in pejorative terms — it ' s all in your head so it must not be real! Would a known biological mechanism lessen the stigma? For over 40 years,Dr. Peter Strick and his colleagues have conducted careful neuroanatomical tracing studies of motor and subcortical systems in the primate brain. A crucial piece of this puzzle requires detailed maps of the anatomical connections, both direct and indirect. How do the frontal lobes, which direct our thoughts, emotions, and movements, influence the function of peripheral organs?In their new paper,Dum, Levinthal, and Strick (2019) revisited their2016 work. Theadrenal medulla (within the adrenal gland) secretes the stress hormones adrenaline and noradrenaline. To trace the terminal projections back to their origins in the spinal cord and up to the brain, the rabies virus was injected in the target tissue. The virus is taken up at the injection site and travels backward (in the retrograde direction) to identify neurons that connect to the adrenal medulla with...
Source: The Neurocritic - Category: Neuroscience Authors: Source Type: blogs