Secrets of the heart-brain connection | Luciano Sposato | TEDxRiodelaPlata

How do the brain and the heart relate? What impact has this relationship in how we understand our emotions and how we make decisions? Luciano Sposato, one of the major world references in this subject, tells us some secrets of our body that have a clear impact on how we live, for instance, a World Cup. Luciano is perhaps the Argentinian neurologist who knows most about the cerebral blood vessels: he studies, treats and cure them. After his years in the Favaloro Foundation (where he created the first center for cerebral vascular accidents), he went on looking for other bloods in the University of Western Ontario, Canada.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at: http://ted.com/tedx

Do you know what Aristotle believed?

Aristotle said that we think
with our hearts

and the brain only cools the blood
coming from our hearts

after thinking.

Doesn't it sound outrageous

that one of the most brilliant minds
in human history

had paralleled the human brain
to a radiator?

I think we all agree that this time
Aristotle was wrong.

For about 10 years, I've been studying
the heart-brain relationship.

Basically, the way in which the heart
induces neurological disease,

like cerebral vascular accidents,

and how the brain induces heart disease,

like arrhythmias.

And through this research
I came across many surprises.

That belief that we only think
with our brain

and that the heart only pumps blood,
is not that accurate.

For example, how many times you were told
to "decide with your heart"?

What does this pump of pure muscle
have to do with decision-making?

Or maybe with the intuition,

which sometimes we need
to make decisions?

There is a study by Cambridge University

that revolutionized the subject
on deciding with our hearts.

And opened the path to what we call:

"research in decision-making."

In this study, subjects were asked
to participate in a game

in which they had to make decisions

based on simulated situations
on a computer.

There were always two options:

one with a favorable outcome,

the other with a unfavorable outcome.

While participating in the game,
they had their heart beats monitored

in order to know how the heart reacted
just before making a decision.

And what they found was that

before making a decision that
would have a favorable outcome,

the heart beat in a particular way.

But when they were going to make
a unfavorable decision,

it beat in a totally different way.

So, apparently,

the heart knew before the brain
was conscious,

if the decision about to be taken

was going to be favorable
or unfavorable.

I ask you to keep this in mind

and we'll make an exercise ourselves,
we'll experiment with our bodies.

Please, close your eyes.

Close your eyes and keep quiet,

and put your hands over your knees,
until I tell you so.

While doing this test,

I'd like to know if you can sense
your heart beats.

OK, please open your eyes.

Please, raise your hands those of you
who were able to sense your heart beats.

Perfect, approximately 50 percent.

Among those who raised their hands

probably many of them have developed

an ability called interoception.

What is the interoception?

It's the capacity of sensing
the messages produced by our bodies,

sent by our bodies.

For example, in this case,
our heart beats.

Back to the experiment carried out
at Cambridge University,

those participating in the game
had done what you have

and were classified in those
with good interoception,

and those with bad interoception.

The most interesting fact
in this experiment was that

those with good interoception made
favorable decisions more frequently

than those without good interoception.

The conclusion of this seems to be
that those people able to detect,

decode and process messages sent
by our hearts before making a decision,

apparently can make better decisions.

Like in any other revolutionary
experiment like this one,

it's necessary to check results with other
scientists making similar studies.

But, meanwhile, don't you think
that sayings like:

"listen to your heart"
or "I have gut feeling"

don't sound so wrong when deciding?

But how do brain and heart
collaborate in such manner

when making a decision?

There's a specific area inside the brain,
the main subject of our research,

called insula.

It's called insula because it resembles
an island underneath the cortex,

and is hidden, and extremely connected
to the whole brain.

It resembles a local airport

where all connections
arrive to and depart from.

But the insula is also connected
to other organs

like the heart or the bowel,
among others,

and so, it is also an
international airport

where all connections to other organs

besides the brain
come to and depart from.

Most interestingly about the insula
is that it's made purely of neurons,

and the heart is pure muscle.

So you may say:

How can these two organs communicate
being so different?

The answer is quite surprising
because the heart, like the brain,

has neurons.

Those white spots you see there
in the heart are neurons,

group of neurons, where connections
from the brain arrive to.

And this you are seeing
is a typical heart;

the heart's anatomy.

And what happened throughout
human history for a heart like that

to become the universal symbol of love?

What does the heart have to do
with loving or falling in love?

In other study,

subjects were asked to bring pictures
of someone they loved deeply,

and somebody who didn't mean
anything to them.

They used a special kind of magnetic
resonance imaging, called "functional,"

that let us see which parts
of the brain are being activated

after certain stimuli,
or certain actions.

What came out
from this experiment is that

when subjects saw the picture
of their loved ones,

areas related with pleasure
and reward were activated.

And not by chance, one of those areas
was indeed the insula.

The insula seems to be related,
along with other areas of the brain,

with functions

that allow us to be aware
that we're in love.

It allows us to say, "This is
the person I am in love with."

And also because of its connections
with the brain,

with the heart and with the bowel,

makes it possible that
when we are with our beloved

we have tachycardia, palpitations,

and that feeling of having
butterflies in our stomach,

when we are in love.

So, we fall in love with our brains,
and not with our hearts.

This level of interconnection

with our brain and also the insula,

has many functional repercussions,

but it also may result
in health problems.

For example, I would like
to show you this graphic:

In the horizontal axis we have
the months of May, June and July.

And in the vertical axis,

the number of heart attacks in Munich.

In 2003, the number of heart attacks
stayed constant,

there were no changes.

In 2005, something similar happened.

In 2006, during May
everything stayed the same;

during June and July there was a sudden
rise in the number of heart attacks.

What happened?

OK, many of you already noticed:
the 2006 World Soccer Cup.

(Laughter)

And each match played by Germany,

is represented by each peak
you see in this graphic.

Most interesting is that peak number 5,

is the match for quarter finals
between Germany and Argentina

which final result
I'd rather not mention.

(Laughter)

This match was being watched by a friend
called Hans at his house.

Hans was sitting in front of the TV,

and saw the first and the second half
which ended even

and all the definition by penalty.

Germany was winning 4 to 2,

the last penalty pending,

Cambiasso prepares to kick
and Lehmann is at the soccer goal.

Cambiasso kicks, Lehmann gets it,
Germany classifies,

and Hans, a extremely passionate fan,

(Laughter)

screams like ever, releases all
his energy and adrenaline accumulated

during those 90 minutes plus penalties,

and after finishing screaming

ends up in hospital with a heart attack.

Like many other Germans

that day when the number
of heart attacks in Munich tripled.

Hans is a living example

of how some emotions affecting our brain

result in cardiac problems.

The stress suffered by Hans,
that adrenaline overdose

compromised his heart
and resulted in a heart attack.

So, here we ask ourselves,

do we have to give up
and accept that we are exposed

to what this complex brain-heart system

exposes us to, regarding our emotions?

Or is there something we can do?

Science is opening many doors,
one of them to ancient techniques.

Techniques that albeit having
thousands and thousands of years,

have only been explored serious
and intensively during the last years.

One of them is "mindfulness."

Mindfulness is somewhat
a form of meditation

that allows us to concentrate
in what's going on around,

in physical sensations, emotions,

and in messages from our bodies.

Does this "messages from our bodies"
ring a bell to you? Interoception?

When I heard about mindfulness
10 or 12 years ago,

I was absolutely skeptical
because, sure enough,

there was no scientific evidence, none.

And as we tend to think
with scientific and medical minds,

if is not proven, it's useless.

So look at what happened
during the last 10 years.

From 2005 to 2015:

Scientific publications which have
the word "mindfulness" in their title.

An important increase and most of them,

the most important part
of the publications you're seeing,

is related to how useful mindfulness
can be to alleviate things like stress.

I know you are skeptical

and have a curious mind

and you won't believe anything I say.

So let's pretend you're scientists,

and I ask you to think which
stressful situation we may use

to prove whether mindfulness
is useful in fighting stress or not.

Which is the worst-case scenario?

War.

In California, there is a center

where Marines are trained
before being sent to combat.

It's the last training
when a drill is carried out,

most stressful,

where Marines are faced
with soldiers resembling

those they will confront.

Noises are the same,

smells are the same,

and said by they themselves,

it's the most stressful moment
before going to war.

In this training center,

half the Marines were offered to do
mindfulness during eight weeks.

The rest had usual training.

They did mindfulness training,
and went through this terrible drill,

and afterwards,
they completed a questionnaire

assessing how stressed they were.

Interestingly, those who underwent
mindfulness training,

were much less stressed out,
than those who didn't.

You may say, "Of course,
they were biased,

as they did mindfulness, they were
bound to say they were less stressed."

But they were also measured a protein
in their blood released by the brain

in extremely stressful situations.

And those who had done mindfulness
had much lower levels

than those who had not.

So, there's an objective
and a subjective demonstration

that there is something
we can do to diminish stress.

And there are plenty of experiments
like this one, portrayed in this graphic.

Thus, it seems that thanks to practices
existing for a long time,

and which science is proving nowadays,

we may have the possibility of decreasing
the impact some emotions have

on our health and
on our heart-brain system.

Maybe in the future, science will tell,

even diseases like stroke
and heart attacks may be prevented

by these kind of practices.

For now, I think we all have

to acknowledge the genius
of Aristotle, the first to think

that heart and brain act as a system.

And I think it is good to remember
the words by a wise man who said,

"A good head and a good heart
are always a formidable combination."

Thank you very much.

(Applause)