Digestive Brain

While driving along the A27 from Moulsecoomb to Southwick yesterday, with burbling boys in the back-seat, I found out an incredible piece of human biology which seems to be largely unknown to the masses: humans have two brains. Danny Baker was the deliverer of the information and whilst he might not be the first port of call for scientific enquiry, it seems he wasn't talking out of his second mouth, but from a position of scientific authority. We do indeed have two brains.

  Brain number two, known as the enteric nervous system, finds its home in our bowels. I guess some kind of definition of what constitutes a brain is required here, and this is where I start to stutter and stumble and annoy anyone with any level of scientific knowledge. The key seems to be that a brain is a coordinating centre and our belly-brain coordinates digestion and that sort of thing, making it a brain. Sometimes it works with the main brain - for instance, butterflies fluttering in the stomach are some sort of neurotransmitter confab between the two. At other times it works independently - when we get windypops, that is brain two telling our body that the food we've recently eaten is not to be consumed again in a hurry.

  This brain, that was only discovered about thirty years ago, can apparently affect our sense of well-being, and whilst brain two seems to stick mainly to sorting our peas and carrots, I wonder whether the fact that emotions seem to be felt in the stomach is something to do with our extra encephalon. Often when the English-language Bible talks of the 'heart', the actual Hebrew translation is 'guts'; the Bible writers are recognising the link between emotions and the belly. Perhaps it is time for brain two to usurp the long-held dictatorial power of brain one, or perhaps not.