Biochemical and biophysical mechanisms underlying the heart and the brain dialog

" Mechanical contractions and deformations and intra-cardiac formation and propagation of blood vortices coupled to electrical signals will be considered. Our discussion rests on a growing body of research indicating that the afferent information processed by the intrinsic cardiac nervous system [8] can influence activity in the fronto-cortical areas [9],[10] and motor cortex, affecting psychological factors, such as attention level, motivation [11], perceptual sensitivity, and emotional processing [12]–[15]. According to the model of neurovisceral integration [9],[16]–[19], the information shared by the heart with the brain may also be coded by rhythmic [20] and electromagnetic patterns [21] which may represent the basis of intuitive-emotional processes [22],[23], awareness and feelings [24],[25], and a rational, detached and “less egocentric” reasoning [26]." {Credits 1}

" Heart generates an electromagnetic field which is most powerful and extensive than the magnetic field produced by the brain [28]. It also expands in all direction into the space surrounding the body which can be detected nearby to the individual. Using these magnetic fields, heart communicates with the body organs [29]." {Credits 1}

" In summary, in a disease state, the heart and the brain are both affected. They involve physiology, biomolecular activity, psychological responses, etc., as described above. Beyond specific biochemical, physiological and functional correlations in each specific disease, their different nature and origin and their wide manifestation spectrum suggest that the cardiovascular and neurologic diseases might be two sides of the same coin." {Credits 1}

" In brain studies, for example, since the early forties, Karl Lashley introduced the concepts of “mass of excitation” and “general fields of activity” when, based on his laboratory observations, he remarked that “...Here is the dilemma. Nerve impulses are transmitted ...form cell to cell through definite intercellular connections. Yet, all behavior seems to be determined by masses of excitation...within general fields of activity, without regard to particular nerve cells... What sort of nervous organization might be capable of responding to a pattern of excitation without limited specialized path of conduction? The problem is almost universal in the activity of the nervous system.” [34] (see also [35] p.9)." {Credits 1}

" Water molecules, that constitute more than 90% in number among the brain molecular constituents (about 80% in weight), and other constituent biomolecules present in the brain are characterized by their electric dipole moment. They constitute the bath in which neural cells, their dendrites, axons, etc., are embedded. Long-range correlations among molecular dipoles would, therefore, facilitate and sustain neural cell organization, both in their permanent (anatomical) interaction net and in their dynamically changeable correlation network." {Credits 1}

" We remark that plasmatic water is about 55% of blood volume and it constitutes the bath where other blood components are embedded. As observed in the previous section, water molecules are characterized by their electric dipole moments. The basic associated symmetry is the dipole spherical rotational symmetry where no preferred rotation direction exists. However, it gets broken by the heart systole contraction and rotation motion which induces the vorticity in the flow, thus singling out the preferred direction associated with the vortex core. The general SBS mechanism discussed in the previous section then may apply, with consequent generation of long-range dipole correlations waves spanning the blood flow. Moreover, the heart twisting-untwisting motion acts not only as symmetry breaking trigger, but introduces also a topologically non-trivial structure in the SBS dynamics, indeed the topological singularity at the vortex core." {Credits 1}

" In the healthy state, the propagation of coherent correlation waves, tuned with neuronal coherent correlation waves (see the discussion on the dissipative model of the brain in section 3), is the prerequisite for the heart and brain dialog and communications mentioned above. Since the correlations of the dipole vibrational fields are phase-correlations, and phase velocity is not limited by the speed of light, the time needed to establish coherence does not need to be larger than some minimum time. This may account for the immediateness of the heart-brain system response to perceptual experiences. Of course, this does not exclude delays due to biochemical activity triggered by the perception. ." {Credits 1}

{Credits 1} 🎪 C. Dal Lin, M. Falanga, E. De Lauro, S. De Martino, G. Vitiello. Biochemical and biophysical mechanisms underlying the heart and the brain dialog[J]. AIMS Biophysics, 2021, 8(1): 1-33. doi: 10.3934/biophy.2021001. © 2021 the Author(s). This open access article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution License.