THE SCIENCE OF HEARTS AND MINDS
“Their eyes met across a crowded room. Somewhere deep within their limbic brain centres, they both felt that they were made for each other.”
Love stories were never quite the same once scientists relegated emotions from their ancient home in the heart to the body’s calculating computer, the brain. But new research is revealing that earlier authors may have been more accurate than we thought in ascribing our thoughts and emotions to the heart. We are now learning that the heart manipulates the brain via neurotransmitters and nerve pathways – in perfect step with our heartbeats. Scientists used to consider the heart a simple blood pump, but the new discoveries show that the heart can influence your senses, needs and deepest emotions concerning other people. So strong are the links between the human body’s two most important organs that the result comes close to a merging of duties.
Heart and brain communicate
Your pulse rate increases when you fall in love, or when you are afraid, or experience stress. You may clearly feel the beating against the inside of your chest, or the pulse of blood in your ears. In this way your heart lets you physically
