How Do You Think?

There is an Indigo Girls song called Galileo that references a fear of motion (00:01:19 into the song) and suggests that the source of this particular fear is from “some other fool across the ocean years ago [having] crashed his little airplane.”  In the song, the means of transmission of this fear is reincarnation, which according to dictionary.com is “the belief that the soul, upon death of the body, comes back to earth in another body or form.”  Such claims lie outside the measurable parameters of science and are dubious.  However, recent research is suggesting that perhaps some fears are indeed transferable across generations.  How can this be?

First, lets consider the life-cycle of a butterfly which commences as an egg laid by a mature butterfly.  The egg hatches and a caterpillar (the larval stage) begins consumption of copious amounts of foliage (molting as he grows) in preparation for one of life’s most mysterious transitions.  When the caterpillar is ready for its amazing metamorphosis, it cocoons itself into a chrysalis.  During this phase the caterpillar essentially digests itself becoming a sack of ooze.  It doesn’t transition from caterpillar into a butterfly by simply sprouting wings.  Nope, it breaks down into a primordial soup and starts a remod from component cells called imaginal discs.  These stem cells of sorts, comprised of just a small number of organized cells, ultimately reconfigure the sack of melted ooze into a fully functional butterfly.  Although the imaginal discs have their beginnings in the egg stage, they remain essentially invisible but preparatory for the butterfly stage throughout the larval stage.  They jump into rigorous reconstruction mode while in the chrysalis.  This same process occurs in moths as well.

Life Cycle of a Butterfly

Life itself ceases for the caterpillar as it pupates in the chrysalis.  It stops breathing, its heart stops beating: its muscles, skin and brain, legs, and antennae, all melt down, becoming liquid fodder for the resurrection.  It’s not simply a transition – it’s a death and a rebirth.

So, you may be asking, how is this relevant?  Let’s consider some amazing research by Martha Weiss, an Associate Professor in the Department of Biology at Georgetown University.   Her research focuses on evolutionary ecology, plant-animal interactions, butterfly and wasp learning, and caterpillar behavior.  One of her studies looked at whether learning during the caterpillar stage would make it across the pupal stage and be evidenced by the moth, despite the death and liquefication of the entire caterpillar.  Such maintenance of memory was largely considered impossible.  In her study, Dr. Weiss exposed caterpillars to a clearly distinguishable, but neutral odor, and then she paired the odor with a mild electric shock.  Pretty quickly, after many repeated pairings,  the caterpillars developed an aversion and a subsequent escape behavior, associated with the odor.  They came to fear it.

Following the pairing sessions and demonstration of learning, the caterpillars pupated.  Just over one month later, as mature moths, when exposed to the conditioned odor, the moths demonstrated a strong aversion to what would normally be a neutral stimuli.   In this study there were also subjects that constituted the control group.  The control moths were, when in the caterpillar stage, exposed to the odor but were not shocked.  They never exhibited a definitive aversion to the odor (as caterpillars or moths).  The caterpillars that were shocked, when presented with the odor, sustained the aversion even after pupating.  The memory made it through the metamorphosis even though the caterpillar had died and the brain turned to goo in the meantime.

This is remarkable – and suggests that memories are capable of being sustained across the death of the caterpillar and the rebirth (probably as a result of the data sustained in the imaginal disks).  As amazing as this is, such memories were not transmitted from adult moths through to the egg and onto subsequent generations of  caterpillars.   So memories can transcend metamorphosis, but is there any evidence of the capacity to sustain memories across generational lines like that implied by the Indigo Girls?

Researchers Brian Dias and Kerry Ressler from Emory University School of Medicine, in Atlanta used a similar research design with mice, whereby adult mice were trained to have an aversive response to the aroma of cherry blossoms.  They repeatedly paired this particular odor with electrical shocks and the mice subsequently learned, through classical conditioning, to fear the conditioned odor.  Unlike moths, mice procreate through intercourse, gestation, and give live birth to baby mice.  There is no metamorphosis, although gestation is a pretty amazing process in its own right.  Anyways, Dias and Ressler breed the mice who had developed the aversion and tested to determine whether their offspring also feared the conditioned stimuli (aroma of cherry blossom).

As it turns out, the offspring and their offspring evidenced an aversion to the cherry blossom odor despite never having been exposed to it or shocked.  The fear appears to have been handed down across generations through a process called epigentics.  Epigentic methylation results in changes in the DNA of the parent prior to conception that are then conferred to their offspring through sexual reproduction.

Granted this has not been scientifically evidenced in humans as yet, but the implications of these findings are staggering. This suggests that DNA is not immutable: that in fact, what happens to a parent prior to conception, can alter his or her DNA, and that those changes can be handed down across multiple generations.  Epigentics is well established and this process is increasingly understood.  But evidence of trans-generational fear responses have not been likewise so well substantiated.  This ability had been seriously doubted.  It is now conceivable that a survivor of a plane crash may later produce offspring who themselves have a subsequent fear of flying.  This may explain human phobic responses to spiders, snakes, heights, and other irrational fears that were previously unexplainable.

This makes me think of my previous article titled Irrational Fear: It’s Just an Alief.  In that article I wrote:

Philosopher Tamar Gendler has coined the word “alief” to describe this cognitive phenomenon.  She fashioned the word around the word “belief,” which is a conscious manifestation of how we suppose things to be.  An alief is a deep and powerful feeling of sorts that can and does play an important role in decision-making, but it is not based in reason or evidence.  Beliefs can be more susceptible to such rational forces.  But aliefs defy reason and exert powerful influence despite one’s attempts to rationally dispel them.  This voice is intuitive and its origins are outside your awareness.  They typically appear in an attempt to facilitate self-preservation.

To call such fears an Alief just gives it a name.  The underpinnings of such fears have been vague and speculative.  The findings of Dias and Ressler provide a testable hypothesis for such phenomena.  And now, when I stand at an intimidating precipice, I can speculate that my fear stems from an incident experienced by unfortunate kin rather than from random bad karma.

References:

1. Blackiston DJ, Silva Casey E, Weiss MR (2008) Retention of Memory through Metamorphosis: Can a Moth Remember What It Learned As a Caterpillar? PLoS ONE 3(3): e1736. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0001736

2. Dias BG, Ressler KJ (2014). Parental olfactory experience influences behavior and neural structure in subsequent generations. Nature Neuroscience (17):89–96. 

3. Jabr F. (2012) How does a caterpillar turn into a butterfly? Scientific American

4. Radio Lab (2014)  Black Box.

Although I did not make a substantial number of posts in 2013, the traffic to my site remained relatively vigorous.  Throughout 2013 my blog had 24,007 hits from 21,042 unique visitors, accounting for nearly 30,000 page views.  I had visitors from every state in the US and 158 nations around the world.  Visitors from the United States accounted for the vast majority of those hits, but the UK, Canada, Australia, India, China, and Germany also brought in large contingents.

Of my posts published in 2013, none made it to this year’s top ten list: five were from 2010,  four were published in 2011, and one was from 2012.  This year the top ranked article (The Moral Instinct) was a 2010 review of a very popular 2008 New York Time’s article by Steven Pinker.   This perennially popular piece ranked 5th last year, 4th in 2011 and 3rd in 2010.   Its bounce to the top this year is more of a testament to Pinker and the popularity of his piece that explores the universality of morals.  In that piece I wrote:

Pinker delves into the neurological factors associated with morality and the evolutionary evidence and arguments for an instinctual morality. He reviews several important studies that provide evidence for these hypotheses. But, he argues that morality is more than an inheritance – it is larger than that. It is contextually driven. He notes: “At the very least, the science tells us that even when our adversaries’ agenda is most baffling, they may not be amoral psychopaths but in the throes of a moral mind-set that appears to them to be every bit as mandatory and universal as ours does to us. Of course, some adversaries really are psychopaths, and others are so poisoned by a punitive moralization that they are beyond the pale of reason. ” He further contends “But in any conflict in which a meeting of the minds is not completely hopeless, a recognition that the other guy is acting from moral rather than venal reasons can be a first patch of common ground.

This article may have also remained popular because of its relevance with regard to the state of affairs in today’s political arena and the application of Jonathon Haidt’s increasingly popular work on the Moral Foundations Theory.  

The 2013 number two ranked piece Nonmoral Nature: It is what it is, is a review of one of Stephen Jay Gould’s most famous articles where he argued that there is no evidence of morality in nature, that in fact “nature as it plays out evolution’s dance, is entirely devoid of anything pertaining to morality or evil. We anthropomorphize when we apply these concepts. Even to suggest that nature is cruel is anthropomorphizing. Any true and deep look at the struggle for life that constantly dances in our midst can scarcely lead to any other conclusion but that nature is brutal, harsh, and nonmoral” (Gould).  Historically this has been a controversial topic and remains so in certain circles today.  This piece has remained popular over the years – ranking 4th last year and 2nd in 2011 and 2010.

Brain MRI

Brainwaves and Other Brain Measures – the 3rd ranking post this year ranked 2nd last year and 1st in 2011. This very popular piece takes a pragmatic, comparative, and colorful look at the various ways of measuring brain activity.  My 2012 article Happiness as Measured by GDP: Really?  is finally getting some attention.  Although it ranked 10th last year, it has climbed into the number four slot this year.  I contend that this is perhaps one of the most important articles I have written.

Proud as a Peacock By Mark Melnick

My critical article on the widely used Implicit Associations Test ranked 5th this year, 6th in 2012, and 4th in 2011. Last year’s number one piece on Conspicuous Consumption and the Peacock’s Tail  is one of my favorite pieces.  It addresses our inherent drive to advance one’s social standing while actually going nowhere on the hedonic treadmill.  It delves into the environmental costs of buying into the illusion of consumer materialism and its biological origins (the signaling instinct much like that of the Peacock’s tail).

I am excited to report that Poverty is a Neurotoxin is also finally gaining some traction.  Published in 2011 it has never achieved a top ranking; although, in my humble opinion, it is no less important.  Rounding out the top ten of 2013, my Hedgehog versus the Fox mindset piece ranked 8th this year, 9th last year, and 10th in 2011. One of my all time favorite posts from 2010,  What Plato, Descartes, and Kant Got Wrong: Reason Does not Rule made it back to the top ten list this year coming in 9th.  It was 7th in 2011 and 8th in 2010.  My 2011 post Where Does Prejudice Come From? ranked 10th this year, 7th last year, and 5th in 2011.

So here is the Top Ten list for 2013.

1. Moral Instinct  (2010) 4182 page views since published – All time ranking #5
2. Non Moral Nature: It is what it is (2010) 4616 page views since published – All time ranking #3
3. Brainwaves and Other Brain Measures (2011) 7941 page views since published – All time ranking #1
4. Happiness as Measured by GDP: Really? (2012) 1719 page views since published – All time ranking #8
5. IAT: Questions of Reliability and Validity  (2010) 2572 page views since published – All time ranking #6
6. Conspicuous Consumption & the Peacock’s Tail (2011) 7677 page views since published – All time ranking #2
7. Poverty is a Neurotoxin (2011) 960 page views since published – All time ranking #18
8. Are you a Hedgehog or a Fox?  (2010) 1702 page views since published – All time ranking #9
9. What Plato, Descartes, and Kant Got Wrong: Reason Does not Rule (2010) 1381 page views since published – All time ranking #12
10. Where Does Prejudice Come From?  (2011) 1625 page views since published – All time ranking #10

Rounding out the top ten All Time Most Popular Pieces are:

• Wicked! Things are NOT as they Seem (2012) 4485 page views since published – All time ranking #4
• Attribution Error (2010) 2263 page views since published – All time ranking #7

These top ranking articles represent the foundational issues that have driven me in my quest to understand how people think.   This cross section of my work is, in fact, a good starting point for those who are new to my blog.

There are several other 2013 posts that ranked outside this year’s top ten list; regardless, I believe they are important.  These other posts include:

1. Mind Pops: Memories from out of the Blue
2. Who Cheats More: The Rich or the Poor?
3. Crime, Punishment, and Entitlement: A Deeper Look
4. Cheaters
5. American Exceptionalism: I’m all for it!
6. Partisan Belief Superiority and Dogmatism as a Source of Political Gridlock

Maintaining relevance is an article, published in 2012, The Meek Shall Inherit The Earth: Our Microbiome, pertains to the collection of an estimated 100 trillion individual organisms (bacteria for the most part) thriving in and on your body that account for about three pounds of your total body weight (about the same weight as your brain).  These little creatures play a huge role in your physical and mental well being and we are just beginning to understand the extent of their reach.  Modern medicine in the future, will likely embrace the microbiotic ecosystem as a means of preventing and treating many illnesses (including treating some mental illnesses).  I have continued to update this piece with comments including links to new research on this topic.

Children of high socioeconomic status (SES) show more activity (dark green) in the prefrontal cortex (top) than do kids of low SES when confronted with a novel or unexpected stimulus. (Mark Kishiyama/UC Berkeley)

Although, not among the most popular articles this year, my pieces on the pernicious affects of poverty on child development from 2011 warrant ongoing attention.  If we truly wish to halt the cycle of poverty, then we need to devote early and evidenced based intervention services for children and families living in poverty.  As it turns out, poverty is a neurotoxin.  Knowing the information in this series should motivate us, as a society, to truly evaluate our current political and economic policies.

• Parenting May Matter: For Infants and the Economically Deprived 

• The Effects of Poverty on Brain Development 

• The Economic, Neurobiological, and Behavioral Implications of Poverty 

• Halting the negative Feedback Loop of Poverty 

• Poverty Preventing Preschools 

• Poverty is a Neurotoxin 

The bottom line:

The human brain, no matter how remarkable, is flawed in two fundamental ways.  First, the proclivities toward patternicity (pareidolia), hyperactive agency detection, and superstition, although once adaptive mechanisms, now lead to many errors of thought.  Since the age of enlightenment, when human-kind developed the scientific method, we have exponentially expanded our knowledge base regarding the workings of the world and the universe.  These leaps of knowledge have rendered those error prone proclivities unessential for survival.  Regardless, they have remained a dominant cognitive force.  Although our intuition and rapid cognitions (intuitions) have sustained us, and in many ways they still do, the subsequent everyday illusions impede us in important ways.

Secondly, we are prone to a multitude of cognitive biases that diminish and narrow our capacity to truly understand the world. Time after time I have written of the dangers of ideology with regard to its capacity to blindfold its disciples.  Often those blindfolds are absolutely essential to sustain the ideology.  And this is dangerous when truths and facts are denied or innocents are subjugated or brutalized.  As I discussed in Spinoza’s Conjecture:

 

“We all look at the world through our personal lenses of experience.  Our experiences shape our understanding of the world, and ultimately our understanding of [it], then filters what we take in.  The end result is that we may reject or ignore new and important information simply because it does not conform to our previously held beliefs.

Because of these innate tendencies, we must make additional effort to step away from what we believe to be true in order to discover what is indeed true.

The Hand of God as an example of pareidolia.

Although I did not make a substantial number of posts in 2012, the traffic to my site doubled.  Throughout 2012 my blog had 35,819 hits from 31,960 unique visitors, accounting for over 46,720 page views.  I had visitors from every state in the US and visits from people from 165 nations around the world.  Visitors from the United States accounted for the vast majority of those hits, but the UK, Canada, India, and Australia also brought in large contingents.

This year the top ranked article was my 2011 post on Conspicuous Consumption and the Peacock’s Tail, which accounted for 50% more hits than this year’s number two ranked article (Brainwaves and Other Brain Measures – the number one post from last year).  The piece on conspicuous consumption, is in my opinion, one of my all time most important pieces.  It addresses our inherent drive to advance one’s social standing while actually going nowhere on the hedonic treadmill.  It delves into the environmental costs of buying into the illusion of consumer materialism and its biological origins (the signaling instinct much like that of the Peacock). The Brainwave piece, also from 2011, compares and contrasts the different measures used to peer into the workings of the brain.

Of my posts published in 2012, only two made it to this year’s top ten list: five were from 2010 and three were published in 2011.  Of those eight from previous years, five were also on the top ten list last year.

My 2012 review and discussion of the Broadway Musical Wicked topped the list of posts actually written in 2012, but it came in third overall this year relative to all other posts.  This article explores the theme that “things are not as they seem.”  I relate the story told in the show to the political and historical manipulation American citizens are subjected to, and it stirs up unpleasant and inconvenient realities that many would prefer remain unknown.

Great interest persists in my post entitled Nonmoral Nature: It is what it is.  This review of Stephen Jay Gould’s most famous article received a number four ranking, down from a number two ranking over the last two years.  I had also reviewed in 2010 a very popular New York Time’s article by Steven Pinker entitled The Moral Instinct.  This article moved down two notches this year, ultimately ranking number five.  My critical article on the Implicit Associations Test ranked number six this year, versus a number four ranking last year.  My 2011 post Where Does Prejudice Come From? ranked number seven this year, down two spots from its ranking in 2011.  One of my all time favorite posts from 2010, Emotion vs. Reason: And the Winner is?  returned to the top ten list this year coming in eighth.   In 2010 it ranked number ten, but it fell off the list last year.  My Hedgehog versus the Fox mindset piece ranked number nine this year, compared to a number ten ranking last year.  Finally, in the number ten slot this year,  is my 2012 article Happiness as Measured by GDP: Really?  This post was perhaps the most important post of the year.

So here is the Top Ten list for 2012.

1. Conspicuous Consumption and the Peacock’s Tail (2011)
2. Brainwaves and Other Brain Measures (2011)
3. Wicked! Things are NOT as they Seem (2012)
4. Non Moral Nature: It is what it is (2010)
5. Moral Instinct  (2010)
6. IAT: Questions of Reliability and Validity  (2010)
7. Where Does Prejudice Come From?  (2011)
8. Emotion vs. Reason: And the Winner is? (2010)
9. Are you a Hedgehog or a Fox?  (2010)
10. Happiness as Measured by GDP: Really? (2012)

Again this year, the top ten articles represent the foundational issues that have driven me in my quest to understand how people think.   This cross section of my work is, in fact, a good starting point for those who are new to my blog.  There are several other 2012 posts that ranked outside the top ten; regardless, I believe they are important.  These other posts include:

• So Your Partner Drives You Crazy? You’re Not Alone. Here’s Why
• Freud: In Some Ways He Was Right
• The Meek Shall Inherit The Earth

This latter article, The Meek Shall Inherit The Earth, pertains to the microbiome, the collection of an estimated 100 trillion individual organisms thriving in and on your body that account for about three pounds of your total body weight (about the same weight as your brain).  These little creatures play a huge role in your physical and mental well being and we are just beginning to understand the extent of their reach.  Modern medicine in the future, will likely embrace the microbiome as a means of preventing and treating many illnesses (including treating some mental illnesses).

Although, not among the most popular articles this year, my pieces on the pernicious affects of poverty on child development from 2011 warrant ongoing attention.  If we truly wish to halt the cycle of poverty, then we need to devote early and evidenced based intervention services for children and families living in poverty.  As it turns out, poverty is a neurotoxin.  Knowing the information in this series should motivate us, as a society, to truly evaluate our current political and economic policies.

• Parenting May Matter: For Infants and the Economically Deprived  

• The Effects of Poverty on Brain Development  

• The Economic, Neurobiological, and Behavioral Implications of Poverty  

• Halting the negative Feedback Loop of Poverty  

• Poverty Preventing Preschools  

• Poverty is a Neurotoxin  

The bottom line:

The human brain, no matter how remarkable, is flawed in two fundamental ways.  First, the proclivities toward patternicity (pareidolia), hyperactive agency detection, and superstition, although once adaptive mechanisms, now lead to many errors of thought.  Since the age of enlightenment, when human kind developed the scientific method, we have exponentially expanded our knowledge base regarding the workings of the world and the universe.  These leaps of knowledge have rendered those error prone proclivities unessential for survival.  Regardless, they have remained a dominant cognitive force.  Although our intuition and rapid cognitions have sustained us, and in some ways still do, the subsequent everyday illusions impede us in important ways.

Secondly, we are prone to a multitude of cognitive biases that diminish and narrow our capacity to truly understand the world. Time after time I have written of the dangers of ideology with regard to its capacity to blindfold its disciples.  Often those blindfolds are absolutely essential to sustain the ideology.  And this is dangerous when truths and facts are denied or innocents are subjugated or brutalized.  As I discussed in Spinoza’s Conjecture:

 

“We all look at the world through our personal lenses of experience.  Our experiences shape our understanding of the world, and ultimately our understanding of [it], then filters what we take in.  The end result is that we may reject or ignore new and important information simply because it does not conform to our previously held beliefs.

Because of these innate tendencies, we must make additional effort to step away from what we believe to be true in order to discover the truth.

We humans like to think of ourselves as strong and dominant forces.  Why shouldn’t we?  After all, we have conquered many of our natural foes and reign supreme as rational and commanding masters of our destiny.  That is what we like to think.  But this may be an illusion because as it turns out, we share our bodies with an unimaginably vast array of organisms that seem to play a substantial role in our well-being.

In and on your body, there are ten microorganisms for every single human cell.  They are invisible to the naked eye – microscopic actually.  For the most part they are bacteria, but also protozoans, viruses, and fungi.  This collection of organisms is referred to as the microbiome and it accounts for about three pounds of your total body weight: about the same weight as your brain.  In all, there are an estimated 100 trillion individuals thriving on your skin, in your mouth, in your gut, and in your respiratory system, among other places.  And it is estimated that there are one to two thousand different species making up this community.⁽²⁾

Image of Microscopic Bacteria

Since wide spread acceptance of the Germ Theory, in the late nineteenth century, we have considered bacteria as the enemy.  These organisms are germs after all, and germs make us sick.  This is accurate in many ways: acceptance and application of the germ theory vastly extended the human life expectancy (from 30 years in the Dark Ages to 60 years in the 1930s).   Other advances have since increased that expectancy to about 80 years.

But, as we are increasingly becoming aware, this microbiome plays a crucial role in our ability to live in the first place.  There are “good” and “bad” microbes.  But this dichotomy is not so black and white.  Some good microbes turn problematic only if they get in the wrong place (e.g., sepsis and peritonitis).  But what we must accept is that we would not survive without the good ones.  We are just beginning to learn of the extent to which they control our health and even our moods.

For example, some of our nutritive staples would be of very limited value if it wasn’t for Baceroides thetaiotaomicron.  This microbe in our stomach has the job of breaking down complex carbohydrates found in foods such as oranges, apples, potatoes, and wheat germ.  Without this microbe we simply do not have the capability to digest such carbohydrates.⁽¹⁾  And this is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

The “beneficial” bacteria in our guts are clearly very important.  They compete with the harmful bacteria, they help us digest our food, and they help our bodies produce vitamins that we could not synthesize on our own.⁽³⁾  Surprisingly, these microbes may play a significant role in our mood.  A recent study looking at the bacteria lacto bacillus, fed to mice, resulted in a significant release of the neurotransmitter gaba which is known to have a calming affect.  When this relationship was tested in humans we discovered a relationship between such gut bacteria and calmness to a therapeutic level consistent with the efficacy of anti-anxiety pharmaceuticals.⁽²⁾  This alone is amazing.

But wait, there’s more.  Take for example Helicobacter pylori (H pylori) whose job seems to be regulating acid levels in the stomach.  It acts much like a thermostat by producing proteins that communicate with our cells signaling the need to tone down acid production.  Sometimes things go wrong and these proteins actually provoke gastric ulcers.  This discovery resulted in an all out war on H pylori through the use of antibiotics.   Two to three generations ago more than 80% of Americans hosted this bacteria.  Now, since the discovery of the connection with gastric ulcers, less than 6% of American school children test positive for it.⁽¹⁾  This is a good thing! Right?

Perhaps not.  As we have recently come to discover, H pylori plays an important role in our experience of hunger.  Our stomach produces two hormones that regulate food intake.  Ghrelin (the hunger hormone), tells your brain that you need food.  Leptin, the second hormone, signals the fact that your stomach is full.  Ghrelin is ramped up when you have not eaten for a while.  Exercise also seems to boost Ghrelin levels.  Eating food diminishes Ghrelin levels.  Studies have shown that H pylori significantly regulates Ghrelin levels and that without it your Ghrelin levels may be unmediated thus leading to a greater appetite and excessive caloric intake.⁽¹⁾  Sound like a familiar crisis?

The long and the short of this latter example is that we really do not understand the down stream consequences of our widespread use of antibiotics.  Obesity may be one of those consequences.  When we take antibiotics, they do not specifically target the bad bacteria, they affect the good bacteria as well.  Its not just medical antibiotics that cause problems – we have increasingly created a hygienic environment that is hostile to our microbiome.  We are increasingly isolating ourselves from exposure to good and bad bacteria, and some suggest that this is just making us sicker.  See the Hygiene Hypothesis.

We have co-evolved with our microbiome and as such have developed an “immune system that depends on the constant intervention of beneficial bacteria... [and] over the eons the immune system has evolved numerous checks and balances that generally prevent it from becoming either too aggressive (and attacking it’s own tissue) or too lax (and failing to recognize dangerous pathogens).”⁽¹⁾   Bacteroides fragilis (B fragilis) for example has been found to have a profoundly important and positive impact on the immune system  by keeping it in balance through “boosting it’s anti-inflammatory arm.”  Auto immune diseases such as Chrones Disease, Type 1 Diabetes, and Multiple Sclerosis have increased recently by a factor of 7-8.  Concurrently we have changed our relationship with the microbiome.⁽¹⁾ This relationship is not definitively established but it clearly merits more research.

Gaining a better understanding of the microbiome is imperative, and is, I dare say, the future of medicine.  We humans are big and strong, but we can be taken down by single celled organisms. And if we are not careful stewards of our partners in life, these meek organisms may destroy us.  It is certain that they will live on well beyond our days.  Perhaps they shall reclaim the biotic world they created.

Author’s Note:  This article was written in part as a summary of  (1) Jennifer Ackerman’s article The Ultimate Social Network in Scientific American (June 2012).  Information was also drawn from (2) a Radio Lab podcast titled GUTS from April of 2012 and (3) a story on NPR by Allison Aubrey called Thriving Gut Bacteria Linked to Good Health in July of 2012.