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I've read a little about the complexity of the gut and it's nervous system connections, but was just thinking of a rough comparison of the two sites. I mean, i

I've read a little about the complexity of the gut and it's nervous system connections, but was just thinking of a rough comparison of the two sites. I mean, if you include the anatomy of brain, the head is conclusively more complicated. But if you consider the brain, and perhaps the nervous network to be a single, extremely complex part, then I suppose you'd still have to believe the head is the more complicated of the two, because of the eyes, and the array of muscles around the face... Was just musing, tbh.

DoreenMichele 6y ago
I think a hard question to answer is "Where does the gut end and the contents of the gut begin?" Stomach acid is contents of the gut but also part of the digestive tract. An even more thorny issue: the microbiome, which is a hot topic in research. And that's a complication the head lacks.
- edmundsauto 6y ago
  Going up a meta-level, for different types of research/analysis, its also important to ask "when is it important to look at gut/contents of gut as separate" and "when should we use a systems understanding". My personal opinion is that modern medicine doesn't really like to think about the systems, because it's easier to look at something in isolation. Sometimes this is helpful - simply the problem space and you can simplify the solution - but much of the time it is inappropriate.
  - DoreenMichele 6y ago
    In tribal cultures, "medicine men" are both doctors and spiritual leaders. Historically in the Western world, doctors were some of the best educated people in town and some of the wisest people in town and everybody knew each other in a small town. The doctor made house calls with his little black bag. Now doctors mostly don't make house calls because we use so much tech for diagnostics that you can't carry it with you. Star Trek's Dr. McCoy and his tricorder was modeled on the "little black bag" pattern of medicine and it married the idea of tech to that model and he could diagnose anything with the super advanced gadget in his hand while going to where the patient was. This is not how it has gone in real life. In the process of making house calls, a doctor casually picked up a lot of information by observation that didn't require him to ask questions. He saw how clean your house was. He saw if you lived alone or with family. Etc. Medicine has moved to a place where we treat people like specimens in a petri dish and as if their physical health is a separate question from the rest of their life. The reality is these are deeply intertwined and cannot be neatly separated. The systems we need to be looking at are not just systems within the body but how the systems those bodies exist within impact the human body. And we aren't even really thinking in that direction yet.

DoreenMichele 6y ago

I think a hard question to answer is "Where does the gut end and the contents of the gut begin?" Stomach acid is contents of the gut but also part of the digestive tract. An even more thorny issue: the microbiome, which is a hot topic in research. And that's a complication the head lacks.

edmundsauto 6y ago
Going up a meta-level, for different types of research/analysis, its also important to ask "when is it important to look at gut/contents of gut as separate" and "when should we use a systems understanding". My personal opinion is that modern medicine doesn't really like to think about the systems, because it's easier to look at something in isolation. Sometimes this is helpful - simply the problem space and you can simplify the solution - but much of the time it is inappropriate.
- DoreenMichele 6y ago
  In tribal cultures, "medicine men" are both doctors and spiritual leaders. Historically in the Western world, doctors were some of the best educated people in town and some of the wisest people in town and everybody knew each other in a small town. The doctor made house calls with his little black bag. Now doctors mostly don't make house calls because we use so much tech for diagnostics that you can't carry it with you. Star Trek's Dr. McCoy and his tricorder was modeled on the "little black bag" pattern of medicine and it married the idea of tech to that model and he could diagnose anything with the super advanced gadget in his hand while going to where the patient was. This is not how it has gone in real life. In the process of making house calls, a doctor casually picked up a lot of information by observation that didn't require him to ask questions. He saw how clean your house was. He saw if you lived alone or with family. Etc. Medicine has moved to a place where we treat people like specimens in a petri dish and as if their physical health is a separate question from the rest of their life. The reality is these are deeply intertwined and cannot be neatly separated. The systems we need to be looking at are not just systems within the body but how the systems those bodies exist within impact the human body. And we aren't even really thinking in that direction yet.