The God-Shaped Brain by Timothy R. Jennings

Author:Timothy R. Jennings
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-8308-9235-8
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
Published: 2017-02-21T18:01:22+00:00

Records and the Brain

Do our beliefs about such things as records in heaven really matter? Beliefs—such as God being a great policeman in the sky, a cosmic inquisitor, a being who watches to mete out proper punishment—incite fear and activate the amygdala (fear circuit). The constantly active amygdala activates the body’s immune system, the specialized white blood cells called macrophages. Why? Because our immune system is to our body what our National Guard is to our nation. It protects us from invasion, and when the alarm fires, it signals the immune system to get ready for invasion.

Imagine you are walking in the Smoky Mountain National Park and, rounding a corner, you come face to face with a black bear. Not only do you instantly become alert but, when your “alarm” fires, your body prepares for “fight or flight.” In this emergency situation, if you fight the bear and survive, it is likely that your skin will be breached and an invasion of microscopic pathogens will occur. With every emergency, it’s like your brain putting your body on DEFCON 2: prepare for invasion.

Every time the “alarm” fires, it primes the body’s immune system to prepare for attack. The body has two types of immunity, acquired and innate. Acquired immunity is what we exploit with vaccines. When we give a vaccine, we introduce antigens of the harmful enemy invaders into the body. Antigens are the identifying markers unique to each organism, analogous to an enemy’s flag. When we give the vaccine, our immune system identifies the enemy by its flag (antigen) and creates antibodies specific for that invader. The antibodies will then function as snipers. They sit and wait for that one particular enemy invader and will kill it and only it.

This is not the immunity we activate when confronted by a bear. The body in emergency mode doesn’t have time to make antibodies, so under stress the body activates the innate immunity. This is analogous to grabbing a sawed-off shotgun under the bed during a home invasion. It is dark, you hear commotion and threat, you point the gun and blast a wide radius. You get the invader, but you also damage the house. The house in our story is the body.

When the alarm (amygdala) fires, it activates macrophages, which begin releasing inflammatory cytokines. These cytokines (such as interleuken-1, interleuken-6 and tumor-necrosis factor) are analogous to our shotgun pellets, designed to destroy the enemy, but just like the pellets, these inflammatory factors also wreak havoc throughout the “house” (body).

Under chronic activation (stress), the cytokines damage the neurons that tell the brain, “Enough stress hormones have been released so don’t call for any more.” The glucocorticoid receptors on our hippocampal neurons are attacked, and we lose the feedback inhibition on the 911 operator (hypothalamus). The 911 operator then begins calling for more stress hormones. This causes further elevation in blood glucose, heart rate and blood pressure, as well as increasing other effects of stress.

Simultaneously, the cytokines damage insulin receptors in the body, making it harder for the body to use glucose.

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