dendritic-trees:

thequantumqueer:

justhurtingalot:

Isn’t it weird how you can actually feel the pain in your chest and stomach when something really hurts your feelings

wanna hear some crazy shit? that happens because you have a miniature brain in your stomach that controls digestion and fucks it up when you’re upset

calling on my neuroscientist friend @dendritic-trees to back me up on this and presumably un-oversimplify it

You do in fact have a mini-brain, not only in your stomach, but stretching through your whole GI tract. It is your friend, the enteric nervous system. The basics are pretty good on its wikipedia page if you want a few more details, but basically it is part of the autonomic nervous system (the same system that controls automatic things like the fight or flight response) and controls the movement of the guts. And it will work even if it is completely disconnected from your brain.

But the two systems interact so that stuff going on in your brain can disrupt your digestion, but equally so that issues in the gut can create feedback that alters your mood. Science heavy explanation here. More lay-person friendly summary here (from Johns Hopkins, don’t read the comments). Also if you get “all disease can be fixed by changing your diet” out of this (I read the comments) you are guilty of gross over-interpretation and have to go to data analysis jail).