What is behind your belly button?

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Which organ in your body has capabilities that surpass all your other organs, and even rival your brain? It is the gut. A lot is happening behind the belly button. What we have in here is our second brain. You’ve probably used it countless times before; it’s just that when you did, you probably referred to it as ‘gut instinct’. New research is showing that this age-old phrase is surprisingly accurate.

The second brain influences our judgment, and much else besides. Known as the Enteric Nervous System (ENS) – enteric meaning ‘to do with intestines’ – it’s an extensive network of brain-like neurons and neurotransmitters wrapped in and around our gut. It contains some 100 million neurons, more than in either the spinal cord or the peripheral nervous system.

Most of the time, we’re unaware of its existence, as its prime function is what one would expect: managing digestion. Yet the presence of all that brain-like complexity is no coincidence.

The ENS have the bizarre ability to work autonomously. Equipped with its own reflexes and senses, it can control gut behavior independently of the brain. We likely evolved this system to perform digestion and excretion "on site," rather than remotely from our brains through the middleman of the spinal cord. However it's complexity likely cannot be interpreted through the messy business of digestion and excretion alone.

The reason for its complexity though was far from clear. In the 1980s, researchers made a startling discovery: the ENS is awash with neurotransmitters, the biochemicals that are vital to brain activity. By 1990's for the first time it was being referred to as the body’s second brain. Researchers worldwide are now racing to explore the implications. 

The ENS is in constant communication with the brain in our skull via the body’s own information superhighway – the vagus nerve. And it’s now becoming clear that all those signals flowing back and forth can influence our decisions, mood and general well-being.

A clue to the key role the state of our gut plays in our well-being comes from the fact that around 80 per cent of the vagus nerve is dedicated to reporting information to the brain. Suddenly, the idea of having a ‘gut instinct’ no longer seems so ridiculous.

The second brain informs our state of mind in other more obscure ways, as well. A big part of our emotions are probably influenced by the nerves in our gut. Butterflies in the stomach—signaling in the gut as part of our physiological stress response, is but one example. Although gastrointestinal (GI) turmoil can sour one's moods, everyday emotional well-being may rely on messages from the brain below to the brain above. 

Cutting-edge research is currently investigating how the second brain mediates the body's immune response; after all, at least 70 percent of our immune system is aimed at the gut. Work is also being done on how the trillions of bacteria in the gut "communicate" with enteric nervous system cells.  It is is leading us to think that in coming years psychiatry will need to expand to treat the second brain in addition to the one atop the shoulders.

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