Your Prefrontal Cortex opens and closes the Electrical and chemical information channels in your brain
We tend to think of the brain as a fixed structure but it can be physically trained in the same way a muscle can. There are two communication systems running your body and brain:
- the electrical system, operating through nerves and neurones;
- the chemical system, based on the transportation of ‘ligands’, molecules carried in liquid form acting as the neurotransmitters and hormones (also called peptides) of our brain and body, transporting information signals triggering different things to happen - including the production of moods.
Dr Candace Pert Ph.D, a research professor in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at Georgetown University Medical Centre in Washington DC, famous for discovering the Opiate Receptor (she has also discovered many other things about our emotional information cycles) tells us the Prefrontal Cortex can restrict the flow of electrical signal information travelling through the brain by sending instructions to brain ‘way stations’, instructing them not to allow certain brain signals through (she says at the moment there are seven of these brain ‘way stations’ known to us). .
The brain is interlaced with anti-emotional signal resistance mechanisms, including the Reticular Formation in the brain stem and the Ascending Reticular Activation System (ARAS), an extension of the Reticular Formation which spreads fan-like throughout the brain. Without this resistance system you would be so overwhelmed by emotional signals coming up from your body you would never wake up.
When it decides it doesn’t like a particular set of signals your Prefrontal Cortex can use these and other built-in resistance systems to deliberately block their effects.
Dr Pert tells us the Prefrontal Cortex can also resist chemically transported (ligand) information by shrinking blood vessels. This reduces both the level of communicating ligands reaching certain parts of the brain and also the amount of glucose - the brain’s only food supply - reaching those brain areas. The Prefrontal Cortex literally starves itself of the ability to think and feel about things it doesn’t want to. Brain scans confirm that during depression brain activity physically moves further back into the brain as a result - which unfortunately moves conscious awareness further down into the Limbic Brain - the automatically more emotional and worrying brain area. This is a self-defeating strategy causing the sufferer to remain emotionally blocked. Depression really is an act of ‘pushing down’ your thinking and feeling processes.
In order to open up to the emotional responses, so allowing the signals through and the energy to evaporate, we need the Prefrontal Cortex (that is, ‘you’) to start sending instructions to the brain’s way stations to start allowing the electrical signals to come through and open up the blood vessels in the brain to allow more of the chemically transported ligands through so all that emotional energy can be released.
In her writings Dr Pert tells us the good news is we can fully reverse the process and return to full unrestricted brain health once we start putting the self-work in.
To be more ‘open minded’ is not just an intellectual process composed of a few thoughts - in the brain it is a physical act. Opening the mind can be a slow, difficult process when it comes to accepting certain types of information. Although I often use the term ‘going in’, because that’s the sense I got during my healing process as I would target my next source of emotional pain and move towards it - the truth is the healing process is one of opening up to. Your Prefrontal Cortex opens up the channels of communication, allowing the signals, both electrical and chemical, to come through.
Regards - Carl
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