Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
rewarding. At the same time, he is still ignoring the possible conse-
quences of not checking the written assignment, but those costs are
not visible yet.
Case 2
When we pass a car on a busy two-lane road, we immediately experi-
ence the increasing speed of our car, but we take for granted that we
also increased the chances of a collision with a car coming from the
opposite direction.
5.2 GUT FEELING, THE NONCONSCIOUS GUIDE
The brain area around the pain center has a broader function than just
dealing with pain sensations. It can be regarded as a first warning sys-
tem. The pain sensors lie just beneath the skin, and the intestinal tube
originally also was part of the skin. The pain center in the brain has a
direct link to the inner surface of this tube. This made it possible to
play a role in digesting, especially in checking the quality of food. Way
back in evolution, there were no refrigerators in the African savannas,
and part of the consumed meat consisted of leftovers from the big hun-
ters (lions, and so on). Quite often, the meat had become tainted, and
eating tainted food is dangerous. Special pain signals from the intesti-
nal tube were part of the danger system. As soon as the intestinal tube
started sending messages that consumed food was tainted, the danger
system ordered the tube to empty (vomiting and diarrhea) by contract-
ing the muscles around it. For this reason, the danger system is closely
connected to the muscles around the intestinal tube.
Long ago, our guts developed into one our first warning systems, and
they still have that function.
Nowadays, if the danger system is activated, the muscles around
the tube are slightly activated as a side effect of the danger awareness.
This connection between the danger system and the abdomen creates
the mechanism behind the
(Carey, 2009). The gut feeling
is a warning signal that something is not alright or had better not be
trusted without us knowing why. Physiologically, the gut feeling is the
conscious recognition of small unconscious contractions of the muscles
in the abdomen.
“
gut feeling
”
