34 quotes
The double-think of modern science—'Molecules shape the body, but electricity shapes the mind'—ends abruptly with the realization that regulatory hormones control both brain and body functions.
The Fabric of Mind (1985)
Brain/body relationships might depend upon a chorus of individual hormones... which are released together to sing hormonal harmonies to the body.
The Fabric of Mind (1985)
Neurosurgeons perform ventricular taps with great frequency. …While this is not something to be done lightly, the risks are no greater than those for cardiac catheterization.
The Fabric of Mind (1985)
Few would have predicted that the discovery of the circulation of the blood would have changed the way philosophers view the world, theologians conceive of God, or astronomers look at the stars, yet all of that happened.
The Fabric of Mind (1985)
Not all ideas of the ideas that pass from one brain to another brain... are good ideas; some are mistakes. These I call 'mismemes'.
The Fabric of Mind (1985)
Regulatory messages or hormones flow from specific regions of the brain to specific glands within 'hollow' nerve fibres exactly as Erasistratus, Galen and Descartes had taught.
The Fabric of Mind (1985)
Some kinds of hormones, the 'steroids', pass readily into the brain, but the 'peptide' hormones produced by the pituitary, the gut, and any other glands do not easily pass through the walls of brain capillaries.
The Fabric of Mind (1985)
As it is possible that the memory loss of senile dementia may stem from a deficiency of 'memory peptide', obesity may result from a deficiency of either bombesin, somatostatin, cholecystokinen, gastrin, or insulin.
The Fabric of Mind (1985)
Physicians and scientists will measure brain hormones—in ventricular fluid and elsewhere—will link these to specific diseases, and will devise space-age techniques to restock the mind's hormonal pantries. The only question is, When?'
The Fabric of Mind (1985)
As hormonal amplification is the hallmark of all of the brain-to-gland relationships of neuroendocrinology, hormonal deamplification is the hallmark of all gland-to-brain relationships of endocrine neurology. This is the fundamental difference between the two sciences.
The Fabric of Mind (1985)
Central to the paradigm that the mind is modulated by hormones is the recognition that the stuff of thought is not caged in the brain but is scattered all over the body; regulatory hormones are ubiquitous.
The Fabric of Mind (1985)
Gone are the days when scientists believed one hormone was made by one gland. Insulin, for example... is made in other surprising places, like the brain, and even by tiny one-cell organisms without a pancreas.
The Fabric of Mind (1985)
Many endocrine diseases of the body entail the production of 'crooked molecules'—molecules that are made in the wrong way by the cell. It is fairly common for a cancer cell to begin the production of a 'crooked' hormone that evokes dramatic changes in other body functions.
The Fabric of Mind (1985)
The ventricles of the human brain... are filled with hormones, and until the hormones swimming in these oceans are dredged out, countless millions of our fellows will remain with brain illnesses that can be neither understood nor treated.
The Fabric of Mind (1985)