The Second Brain

By Michael Gershon, M.D.

Serotonin
has become a household word. If we know nothing else, weve picked up on the fact that this neurotransmitter makes us feel good. The SSRI anti-depressants are responsible for bringing serotonin out of the closet, so to speak, as Prozac and other mood drugs are prescribed for an estimated 10 percent of Americans. SSRI stands for selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitor. These drugs diminish the disappearance rate (re-uptake) of serotonin in the nervous system i.e., they keep it available in our nerve cells for longer. Serotonin, it turns out, is important for more than mood. It also plays a critical role in digestion since without it there would be no intestinal peristalsis, or movement. In fact, over three quarters of our serotonin is said to be in our intestines. How did we find this out? Medical researchers like Michael Gershon (Chairman for many years of the Department of Anatomy and Cell biology at Columbias College of Physicians and surgeons) pursued this neurotransmitter in the guts of lab animals, especially the guinea pig because that hapless animal so closely resembles us in ways that interest scientists. The Second Brain is Dr. Gershons description of his odyssey, so to speak, through the rodent gut. He writes with unflagging verve and humor, which keep the story going, and also with the needed clarity for the non-medical reader to understand such a complex picture. When Dr. Gershon started his research, his colleagues were all convinced that there were only two branches of the peripheral (not the central) nervous system: the sympathetic and the para-sympathetic. This research, which established that serotonin functions in the gut, also established the existence of the enteric, or intestinal, nervous system. Although connected to the brain via the vagus nerve, the enteric nervous system can function independently. Science has finally caught up with and validated the famous gut feeling. The enteric nervous system is an independent site of neural integration and processing. This is what makes it the second brain. But before getting to the intestines, Dr. Gershon takes the reader on a journey beyond the teeth, to show what we do to the food we eat. His colorful language includes such similes as comparing the work involved in pumping hydrogen ions for stomach acid to the effort of going up Niagara Falls in a barrel. In other words, digestion requires a lot of energy! From swallowing to excreting, the author describes the chemical and physical processes in illuminating ways. For instance, consider the magic of a triglyceride fat being dismantled by the digestive enzyme lipase. Its three fatty acids are separated from the glycerol tie that binds them together so that they can slip through the cell membranes in the gut wall. Once inside the cell they reattach thanks again to a glycerol molecule and again become a triglyceride. Your doctor may have talked to you about this if your serum triglyceride level is high. The usual cure for that, by the way, is to reduce dietary sugar. Another reason to skip desert! Why does Dr. Gershon call the enteric nervous system a second brain? It is because the enteric nervous system has more in common, both chemically and structurally, with the brain than with the remainder of the peripheral nervous system. The enteric nervous system looks as if it were what he calls the brain gone south. As a result it is to be anticipated that that illnesses of various types that occur in the brain will also involve the enteric nervous system. Parkinsons is one example of this concept and Alzheimers is another example. Although thoroughly impressed by The Second Brain and by the neurobiologist who wrote it, I do have one criticism, which is that the book has no index. No serious book presenting complex information should be without one. Other than that, this book is a gem.
Rosalind Michahelles is a Certified Holistic Health Counselor in Cambridge. For questions about this essay or related issues please call 617-491-3239 or visit www.nutrition-matters.info