WE TRULY ARE ALL CONNECTED

DR. ROLLIN MCCRATY, Director of Research at the HeartMath Institute, gave an online presentation to the Heartfulness international conference, "An Integrative Approach to Health and Well-being," at Kanha Shanti Vanam in December 2022. In part 2, he shares more about coherence at the individual, group, and global levels.

Heart to Brain to Body

It took many years for us to sort out why our heart rhythms have such a profound influence on brain function, but at the end of the day it’s pretty simple.

As I mentioned in “The Science of Heart Coherence,” we have neural traffic coming up through the afferent or ascending pathways to the brain, and once it comes to the brainstem there are strong direct neural connections to every major brain center. The one I’m going to focus on is the thalamus, which is at the very core of our brain.

The thalamus has many roles and functions, but one key function is to globally synchronize the electrical activity of the neural systems in the entire brain. In fact, it’s the brain’s ability to synchronize its own electrical activity that allows us to be awake and conscious. These neural loops between the thalamus and cortex, called the thalamocortical loops, are critical to be awake and conscious. If those loops are damaged, like in a head injury, and they get severed, those people are in a coma. They can’t wake up because the brain can’t organize and synchronize its electrical activity.

When we’re in an emotional state that desynchronizes our system, like when we feel frustration or anger, that neural pattern of activity goes directly to the thalamus. It interferes with and inhibits the thalamus’ ability to globally synchronize the activity in the entire brain. It’s easy to measure in things like reaction times, coordination tasks, visual fields, etc.