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Mapping the Wisdom of the Body
| Article
# : |
17760 |
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Section : |
NATURAL SCIENCE
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| Issue
Date : |
6 / 1990 |
1,946 Words |
| Author
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Joseph DiLeo and Glenn Carroll Strait
Joseph DiLeo, now a free-lance writer in Washington, D.C., has
worked as a research assistant in behavioral biology at Johns
Hopkins University. Glenn Carroll Strait is a Natural Science
editor at THE WORLD & I. |
As an object of scientific analysis, the human body has been subdivided into distinct systems with presumed distinct functions. Most adults can probably remember studying the digestive system, respiratory system, immune system, endocrine system, and nervous system, each with its specific structure and function.
The image is of a highly organized complex organism with clear division of responsibility assigned to the separate, component systems. However, scientific research is now discovering important interconnections between some of the key body systems.
Although their modes of operation appear to be radically different, both out nervous system and our immune system perceive and respond to both the external and the internal environment. The apparent defense in the way they function has, for decades, compelled most scientists to believe that the two systems were distinct and autonomous. For many years, the nervous system was seen as using electrical-chemical impulses both for thinking (in the brain) and for transmitting messages through the nerves. In contrast, the immune system functioned through immune cells circulating throughout the body via the blood and the lymph systems. A third independent system - the endocrine system of glands - maintained the internal balance of the organism via molecules (called hormones) released into the blood.
However, current research is revealing that these three systems - nervous, immune, and endocrine - are intricately interactive, maintaining a continuous and rather detailed electrical-chemical conversation. The joint investigation of these three interdependent systems, plus psychological-behavioral factors, is an emerging field of study so new that no commonly accepted name exists for it. For this article, the acronym PBH (the Psycho-Biology of Homeostasis, Health and Healing) is used. [See "What Shall We Name It?" p.307.]
The endocrine, immune, and central nervous systems in the whole living organism are engaged in continuous interactions. All three systems interact through molecules that traverse the body via nerves, blood and lymph, pathways that were previously thought to e quite separate. Depending on the system in which they were found, these molecules had previously been called hormones (endocrine system), lymphokines (immune system), and neurotransmitters (nervous system). Yet many of these chemical messengers are now recognized as belonging to the broad class of molecules called peptides - complex chains constructed from amino acids. In highly complex patterns a whole orchestra
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