Your heart is older than your brain. It beats, autonomously, 4 weeks after conception and does not stop until death. Moving at a glacial pace, the brain sparks to life 9 weeks later [1]. The sagacious heart rests at the center of your chest, part of a dense endocrine and immune network that processes neurological signals. All independent from the brain. All to maintain the body in exquisite balance. Is it any surprise then, that disturbances in this delicate rhythm affect brain function?

In Ancient Greece, the widely held theory was that the heart acted as a brain - collecting information from all other organs through the circulatory system[2]. Each transitory emotion, each perverse thought, catalogued by a bloody fist-sized pump. Outrageous. Or is it?

The brain and heart communicate through the vagus nerve, the lengthiest cable of the autonomic nervous system. 85-90% of fibers in the vagus nerve are devoted to transmitting cardiovascular signals to the brain. More than any other organ. Critical messages from the nervous, endocrine and immune systems are received through the coded language of neurotransmitters, hormones and cytokines.