The heart of things

Interesting article in the October 12 issue of Science: Matters of the Heart, by A. J. Wells:

Is there any truth in the long-standing association of emotions with the heart, or is it merely the stuff of superstition and myth? “Heartfelt Emotions,” a symposium that brought to a close a program of events supporting The Heart exhibition at the Wellcome Collection’s recently refurbished building in London, explored this question. The symposium included contributions from the exhibition’s curators, heart scientists, poets, writers, historians, psychologists, and a keenly interested audience.

It must have been a delightful symposium, but we can only guess; Wells provides few details of the proceedings. We’ll have to speculate.

I doubt anyone would disagree that emotions can affect the heart. Trivial examples would include the effect of fear on heart rate and blood pressure, but according to Wells, there’s also evidence that “age-related probability of dying increases for a period after the death of a spouse.” Is there an increase in cardiogenic causes of death? Are heart attacks, for example, more common? I wonder.

The heart has its own nervous system — that’s what keeps it beating. How certain can we be that the heart’s nerve net does not encode memories, too? Are heart transplant case histories like these a whole lot of BS, or do they suggest something traditional medicine would rather overlook?

Together with Schwartz and Russek, Pearsall conducted a study, published in the Spring 2002 issue of the Journal of Near-Death Studies, entitled, “Changes in Heart Transplant Recipients That Parallel the Personalities of Their Donors.” The study consisted of open-ended interviews with 10 heart or heart-lung transplant recipients, their families or friends and the donor’s families or friends. The researchers reported striking parallels in each of the cases. The following is a sampling of some these.

In one case, an 18-year-old boy who wrote poetry, played music and composed songs, was killed in an automobile accident. A year after he died his parents came across an audiotape of a song he had written, entitled, “Danny, My Heart is Yours,” which was about how he “felt he was destined to die and give his heart to someone.” The donor recipient “Danny” of his heart, was an 18-year-old girl, named Danielle. When she met the donor’s parents, they played some of his music and she, despite never having heard the song, was able to complete the phrases.

That article lists several more such anecdotes. Yeah, I’m willing to bet The Journal of Near-Death Studies ain’t exactly the British Journal of Medicine, but I doubt any “respectable” journal would look twice at a study like this.

How might the heart influence emotion? One way the heart could “communicate” with the brain would be if the heart had any endocrine function. In other words, does the heart secrete any compounds which enter the circulation? Because if it does, the bloodstream would carry those hormones to every organ of the body, including the brain.

In fact, the heart does secrete a hormone — atrial natriuretic peptide and brain natriuretic peptide, which have primarily vascular effects, but may also have an important role in stress regulation. Even more suggestive: in rats, atrial natriuretic peptide can be found* in several areas of the brain, including the limbic system. (Here’s another relevant abstract, also from rat studies, from which one can infer high levels of responsiveness in both the limbic system and neocortex.)

The heart makes these hormones. The brain responds to these hormones. This is not a bizarre hypothesis.

I may come back to this subject again, sometime in the future when it’s not 11:24 PM, and I’m not dog tired. Good night!

D.

Atrial natriuretic peptide mRNA precursors, to be exact. But if the mRNA precursors are there, chances are excellent ANP will be there, too.

Walnut, October 17, 2007. Category: Blinded by science, The Barbarous Craft.

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