CITE: Verny, T. The Embodied Mind. Pegasus Books. 2021.
In Greek: Verny, T. Ο Ενσώματος Νους. Prenatal Sciences Research Institute SOPHIA. 2023
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SUMMARY
As groundbreaking synthesis that promises to shift our understanding of the mind-brain connection and its relationship with our bodies.
We understand the workings of the human body as a series of interdependent physiological relationships: muscle interacts with bone as the heart responds to hormones secreted by the brain, all the way down to the inner workings of every cell. To make an organism function, no one component can work alone. In light of this, why is it that the accepted understanding that the physical phenomenon of the mind is attributed only to the brain?
In The Embodied Mind, internationally renowned psychiatrist Dr. Thomas R. Verny sets out to redefine our concept of the mind and consciousness. He brilliantly compiles new research that points to the mind’s ties to every part of the body.
The Embodied Mind collects disparate findings in physiology, genetics, and quantum physics in order to illustrate the mounting evidence that somatic cells, not just neural cells, store memory, inform genetic coding, and adapt to environmental changes—all behaviors that contribute to the mind and consciousness. Cellular memory, Verny shows, is not just an abstraction, but a well-documented scientific fact that will shift our understanding of memory.
Verny describes single-celled organisms with no brains demonstrating memory, and points to the remarkable case of a French man who, despite having a brain just a fraction of the typical size, leads a normal life with a family and a job. The Embodied Mind shows how intelligence and consciousness—traits traditionally attributed to the brain alone—also permeate our entire being. Bodily cells and tissues use the same molecular mechanisms for memory as our brain, making our mind more fluid and adaptable than we could have ever imaged.
HIGHLIGHTS
- An individual’s adult physical and mental health is heavily influenced by their early prenatal environment.
- The unborn child will adjust as best they can to the external environment they are going to encounter upon birth by way of prenatal epigenetic changes.
- Generally speaking, the life experiences of parents may impact the development and health of their descendants.
- In particular, parental nicotine, cannabis and alcohol use has been shown to be associated with adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes in offspring.
- Traumatic experiences of parents lead to extra-sensitivity to traumatic events in offspring, and this may persist for several generations.
- Gene activity increases or decreases in response to changes in our environment.
- Our interactions with others and ourselves rapidly lead to changes in brain gene expression and behavior.
- Recent research subverts the hegemony of the synapse.
- The synapse acts as a conduit to neurons not as a depository for memories.
- Though it is agreed that neurons in the cerebral cortex store memories, other cells such as glial cells and neurons in the spinal cord and the gut also contribute to information processing and storing.
- It is time for responsible neuroscientists to seriously consider modifying or abandoning the cortico-central hypothesis of memory.
- Cases of hydrocephaly provide convincing support for the argument that the size of a human brain is unrelated to its information content, intelligence or capacities.
- Savants, are born with extraordinary abilities. The genes that control these exceptional talents were active in the early childhood savants whereas in the late bloomers these same genes were switched on by environmental events like a blow on the head.
- Genes don’t make us who we are. Gene expression does. And gene expression.
- Many factors, including genetic endowment, physical and mental activity influence cognition and brain aging, but nutrition plays an essential role.
- At the first hint of invading organisms the immune system launches an orchestrated attack on them usually destroying and eliminating them.
- Our immune system will memorize the pathogen after an infection and following reinfection recognize and destroy the same pathogen.
- A total of three different cells in the immune system retain memory. They are memory B cells, memory T cells and follicular memory T cells.
- Immune cells respond to emotions.
- Deep sleep enhances memory formation in the brain and in the memory cells of the immune system.
- Well-regulated immune system is necessary for normal brain function.
- The cell membranes of cortical and somatic cells store information/memory.
- Information/memory is also stored within the cell.
- DNA is the cellular equivalent of the iCloud.
- Each cell has enormous capacity for information storage.
- All of the major mechanisms by which nerves function – ion channels, neurotransmitters, and electrical synapses exist throughout the body.
- Biological cell assemblies work in concert with neural networks.
- Cells remember their origins, all the way back to conception.
- Bacteria are capable of learning and remembering.
- Bacterial communities (biofilms) process information and make decisions about nutrient distribution and metabolism as an integrated whole, using ion channels similar to the way neurons operate in the brain.
- The vagal gut-to-brain axis plays a critical role in motivation and reward.
- The microbiome has multiple critical effects on our physiological and metabolic processes ranging from prenatal brain development and modulation of the immune system to, perhaps most surprisingly, behaviour and cognition.
- A healthy gut microbiota contributes to normal brain function.
- The slime mold Physarum Polycephalum hints at the cellular origins of primitive intelligence.
- Retention of the learned response survives regeneration in planaria.
- Social memory does not seem to be affected by hibernation.
- In some cases of holometabolous insects, adult behavior has been shown to have originated from larval associative learning.
- Convincing data from planaria, insects, and mammals suggest that memories of learned behavior can survive drastic rearrangement and rebuilding of the brain.
- Through the repetition of experiences, a habit is formed: well-practiced motion sequences become implicit bodily knowledge and skill.
- Experiences, especially ones that carry a strong emotional charge and/or have involved multiple sensory organs such as the eyes, ears, or skin tend to be more strongly anchored in body memory than experiences with less emotional charge or perceived by only one or two sensory modalities.
- Local cells and tissues originate and control repair as they gradually call on other systems to support their work.
- Injuries that cause inflammation are remembered by stem cells in the skin.
- Traumas, whether physical or psychological, are locked in the whole body. Therefore, complete healing may benefit from body-oriented psychotherapy.
- On occasion, our bodies speak loudly about things we would rather not hear. That is the time to pause and listen.
- The heart is not just a pump; kidneys don’t just purify our blood; the lungs are more than breathing machines.
- The heart, like the nervous system, possesses the properties of memory and adaptation.
- The heart acts as a synchronizing force within the body, a key carrier of emotional information as well as other information related to personal identity.
- Sensitive transplant patients may evidence personality changes that parallel the experiences, likes, dislikes and temperament of their donors.
- It is comforting for the donors’ families to see evidence of not just their loved ones giving someone a chance at life, but to know that a bit of them lives on within the recipient.
- Such changes are further proof of information/memory being embedded in somatic cells and tissues as well as brain cells.
- It seems that the ideas we carry in our collective unconscious about the heart as a center of thought, feeling and personality are closer to modern science than science previously postulated.
