<<Just as the central brain affects the gut, the gut's brain can talk back to the head, Dr. Gershon said. Most of the gut sensations that enter conscious awareness are negative things like pain and bloatedness, Dr. Wingate said. People do not expect to feel anything good from the gut but that does not mean such signals are absent, he said.
Hence, the intriguing question: why does the human gut produce benzodiazepine? The human brain contains receptors for benzodiazepine, a drug that relieves anxiety, suggesting that the body produces its own internal source of the drug, said Dr. Anthony Basile, a neurochemist in the Neuroscience Laboratory at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md. Several years ago, he said, an Italian scientist made a startling discovery. Patients with liver failure fall into a deep coma. The coma can be reversed, in minutes, by giving the patient a drug that blocks benzodiazepine.
When the liver fails, substances usually broken down by the liver get to the brain, Dr. Basile said. Some are bad, like ammonia and mercaptans, which are "smelly compounds that skunks spray on you," he said. But a series of compounds are also identical to benzodiazepine. "We don't know if they come from gut itself, from bacteria in the gut or from food," Dr. Basile said. But when the liver fails, the gut's benzodiazepine goes straight to the brain, knocking the patient unconscious.
The payoff for exploring gut and head brain interactions is enormous, Dr. Wood said. For example, many people are allergic to certain foods, like shellfish. This is because mast cells in the gut mysteriously become sensitized to antigens in the food. The next time the antigen shows up in the gut, Dr. Wood said, the mast cells call up a program, releasing chemical modulators that try to eliminate the threat. The allergic person gets diarrhea and cramps, he said.>>
From
http://www.nytimes.com/1996/01/23/s...es-and-butterflies.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
Hence, the intriguing question: why does the human gut produce benzodiazepine? The human brain contains receptors for benzodiazepine, a drug that relieves anxiety, suggesting that the body produces its own internal source of the drug, said Dr. Anthony Basile, a neurochemist in the Neuroscience Laboratory at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md. Several years ago, he said, an Italian scientist made a startling discovery. Patients with liver failure fall into a deep coma. The coma can be reversed, in minutes, by giving the patient a drug that blocks benzodiazepine.
When the liver fails, substances usually broken down by the liver get to the brain, Dr. Basile said. Some are bad, like ammonia and mercaptans, which are "smelly compounds that skunks spray on you," he said. But a series of compounds are also identical to benzodiazepine. "We don't know if they come from gut itself, from bacteria in the gut or from food," Dr. Basile said. But when the liver fails, the gut's benzodiazepine goes straight to the brain, knocking the patient unconscious.
The payoff for exploring gut and head brain interactions is enormous, Dr. Wood said. For example, many people are allergic to certain foods, like shellfish. This is because mast cells in the gut mysteriously become sensitized to antigens in the food. The next time the antigen shows up in the gut, Dr. Wood said, the mast cells call up a program, releasing chemical modulators that try to eliminate the threat. The allergic person gets diarrhea and cramps, he said.>>
From
http://www.nytimes.com/1996/01/23/s...es-and-butterflies.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
