Study traces brain-to-gut connections - insula stress ulcers - But ANS "fight or flight" response leads to primary motor cortex.
Neuroscientists at the University of Pittsburgh Brain Institute have traced neural pathways that connect the brain to the stomach, providing a biological mechanism to explain how stress can foster ulcer development.
The findings, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, build a scientific basis for the brain’s influence over organ function and emphasize the importance of the brain-body connection....
In contrast, the sympathetic — “fight or flight” — pathways of the central nervous system, which kick in when we’re stressed, predominantly trace back from the stomach to the primary motor cortex, which is the seat of voluntary control over the skeletal muscles that move the body around.