Newly Emerging Facts about the Immune System:
1. The Immune System is linked to the Nerve Network.
“Brain Cells and Immune Cells are equipped for direct communication with one another.”
Elena Korneva, M.D.
Institute for Experimental Medicine, Leningrad, U.S.S.R.
2. Immune Reactions are linked to Nerve Network memory.
“…Immunological reactions may involve a learning or experiential factor in which antibodies are ‘educated’ to recognize specific antigens, with the resulting experience stored in (Nerve System) memory.”
Toward a New Brain: Evolution and the Human Mind,
Litvak & Senzee, p133, 1986.
3. Chemicals interact with the “Field” before entering the body.
“As an extension of the ‘Drug and Nutrient Compatibility Test’, when the same muscle test is performed, instead of putting food or drugs inside the oral cavity, when it is simply put on the abdomen, such as on the navel, or any other part of the body, we often obtain a quite similar effect as with the test in the oral cavity.”
Yoshiaki Omura, M.D.,
Acupuncture & Electrotherapeutics Research Journal, Int’l.
“Dr. Herbert Benson at Harvard Medical School has determined that a part of the Hypothalamus, when stimulated, can produce activation of the whole-body system. Another part of that hypothalamus, however, when stimulated, can produce a relaxation of the entire body.”
“Super Immunity, Master Your Emotions and Improve Your Health”
Paul Pearsall, Ph.D.
New Way of Looking at Diseases of the Brain
The New York Times, Page D1
October 26, 1999
Edited for Content
A highly respected neuroscientist has developed a provocative new theory of how the brain is organized which, if confirmed, would explain how and why the mind produces symptoms found in several seemingly unrelated disorders.
The neuroscientist, Dr. Rodolfo Llinas, a professor at New York University Medical School, presented his findings on Sunday night in Miami to some 4,000 researchers attending the annual Society for Neuroscience meeting.
Although the theory has not yet been subjected to peer review, a paper describing the work was submitted last week to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and accepted for publication in just two days.
Dr. Llinas is a member of the academy, which often publishes the work of leading scientists or their protégés when the ideas are new and have not yet been tested by others.
“This work is very important,” said Dr. Edward Jones, president of the Society for Neuroscience and director of the Center for Neuroscience at the University of California in Davis.
“What makes it so compelling is that it doesn’t come completely out of left field. It builds on a body of work that’s been growing for some time. Everyone will say wow, yes!”
The theory involves two brain areas – the cerebral cortex and the thalamus – and how they communicate.
The cortex is a thickly folded band of tissue that carries out higher mental capacities in humans and other mammals. It is composed of six layers of cells that are highly interconnected and organized into specialized regions that allow people to move their bodies, plan for the future, talk, listen, sense touch, respond to emotions and carry out other functions. The sixth layer of these cells is also directly connected through nerve fibers to cells in the thalamus, an older brain structure that is just under the cortex.
The thalamus is usually thought of as a relay station. Virtually all information flowing from the outside world and lower brain regions must go through the thalamus before being passed on to the cortex.
But according to Dr. Llinas, the thalamus does much more than simply pass information.
The way that it coordinates its activity with the cortex, he says, gives rise not only to the symptoms seen in many neurological and psychiatric diseases, but to consciousness itself.
It does so through what Dr. Llinas calls thalamo-cortical oscillations. The thalamus contains special cells that pass tiny electrical currents across their membranes in a highly coordinated manner, Dr. Llinas said in a telephone interview. Rather than firing sporadically and singly, like other nerve cells, the cells in the thalamus oscillate, firing in groups together at various frequencies.
By virtue of their connections, these thalamic cells then cause cells in layer six – the layer of the cortex closest to them – to oscillate at the same frequency. This coordination between these oscillating cells in the cortex and thalamus, which are constantly flipping signals back and forth, binds information from different regions of the brain into complete actions, perceptions, movements and into consciousness itself, he said.
When the cells oscillate at a high frequency, the brain is awake and alert. When they fall into low frequencies, the brain becomes disconnected, unconscious and falls asleep.
In studying patients with various brain diseases, Dr. Llinas and his colleagues noticed that particular regions of their thalamuses oscillated at abnormally low frequencies, as if those regions were asleep.
When this happens, Dr. Llinas said, key parts of the cortex are decoupled from the thalamus. Those parts of the cortex then become overly excited because they are no longer under proper control, he said, and symptoms of dysfunction emerge.
For example, a defect in one tiny part of the thalamus that projects to one of the higher areas controlling movements can cause those movements to become uncoordinated. The result is the tremors seen in Parkinson’s disease.
If the defect is a fraction of an inch away, a different part of the region controlling movement is affected, resulting in the rigidity seen in many patients.
Chronic-pain sufferers also have sluggish regions of the thalamus, Dr. Llinas said and then explained that areas of the cortex that deal with pain become overexcited, producing intense discomfort that does not respond to drugs.
Dr. Llinas speculates that the same underlying defect causes some types of depression, most tinnitus and obsessive compulsive disease. In each case, according to his theory, a part of the thalamus is out of phase with the cortex which, unregulated, produces symptoms of profound sadness, ringing in the ears or endless hand washing.
Recommended Reading List
| 1. CROSS CURRENTS The Perils of Electropollution | Robert O. Becker, M.D. |
| 2. INFINITE MIND Science of the Human Vibrations of Consciousness | Valerie Hunt |
| 3. MOLECULES OF EMOTION | Candace B. Pert, Ph..D. |
| 4. NEUROPHYSIOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS IN LEARNING | Frederick R. Carrick, D.C., Ph.D., D.A.B.C.N., et al |
| 5. POWER VS. FORCE The Hidden Determinants to Human Behavior | David R. Hawkins, M.D. |
| 6. QUESTIONS & ANSWERS ABOUT EMFElectric & Magnetic Fields Associated with the Use of Electric Power | National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences & U.S. Dept. of Energy |
| 7. THE BODY ELECTRIC | Robert O. Becker, M.D. |
| 8. THE HEART’S CODE | Paul Pearsall, Ph.D. |
| 9. THE HOLOGRAPHIC UNIVERSE | Michael Talbot |
| 10. THE PSYCHO-BIOLOGY OF MIND BODY HEALING | Ernest L. Rossi |
| 11. THE SECRET LIFE OF PLANTS | Peter Tompkins & Christopher Byrd |
| 12. VIBRATIONAL MEDICINE | Richard Gerber, M.D. |
| 13. VIBRATIONAL MEDICINE FOR THE 21ST CENTURY | Richard Gerber, M.D. |
| 14. EVOLUTIONS END | Joseph Chilton Pearce |
To Order from Reading List
4. Contact Logan College of Chiropractic , 1851 Shoettler Road, P.O. Box 1065, Chesterfield, MO. 63006-1065, phone: (800) 842-3234, Attn: Dept.of Neurology or thru the American Chiropractic Association – Council on Neurology, 1701 Claredon Blvd., Arlington, VA 22209 (800) 966-4636.
6. Contact Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington , D.C., 20402, phone: (202) 512-1800 Item #DOE/EE-0040
All other books are available from customary sources.
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