We now have amazing brain scans that show which networks in the brain ramp up during different activities. But this emphasis on the brain has subtly fed the illusion that thinking happens only from the neck up. It’s fed the illusion that the advanced parts of our thinking are the “rational” parts up top that try to control the more “primitive” parts down below. So it’s interesting how many scientists are now focusing on the thinking that happens not in your brain but in your gut. The vagus nerve is one of the pathways through which the body and brain talk to each other in an unconscious conversation.

Source: New York Times November 28, 2019 21:22 UTC