Your Gut is a Second Brain. Here's How It Controls You. #2

You've felt it. You're about to make a big decision—a new job, a new city, a new relationship. The pro-con list is perfect, the logic is sound. But deep in your gut, something feels... off. Or maybe, it feels incredibly right. What is that? Is it poetry, or is it a status report from a hidden intelligence center? This isn't just a metaphor. Buried within your digestive tract is the Enteric Nervous System: a complex network of over 100 million neurons, more than your spinal cord. This "second brain" operates with stunning independence, but it's in constant communication with the brain in your head. And this is the secret: 80-90% of that conversation flows in one direction—from the gut UP to the brain via the vagus nerve. Your brain is a prediction engine, constantly forecasting your reality. It builds its models of the world based on the data it receives. And a huge portion of that data—delivered via nerves, hormones, immune signals, and chemicals produced by trillions of microbes—comes from your gut. This means your gut feelings are, in a very real sense, biasing your reality. They are shaping your mood, your cravings, your anxiety, your confidence, and your decisions. So what happens when we learn to read the signals? Or even... rewrite them? Join us as we explore the four communication channels that connect your two brains and reveal how this ancient conversation is secretly running your life. ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ About The Science Audit: We explore big questions across neuroscience and psychology, biology and chemistry, physics and astronomy, computer science and AI—translating complex ideas into human-scale wonder. Main Video Chapters: 00:00:44 We are about to follow the wires 00:01:44 It runs the local traffic system the 00:02:43 Now here’s the mind-bending part somewhere between 00:04:18 Think of these cytokines as inflammatory postcards 00:05:27 They can calm inflammation in the brain 00:06:39 These brain regions stitch all those disparate 00:08:30 Roughly 90-95 of your total serotonin is 00:10:42 This creates a beautiful paradox we call 00:11:41 And Fecal Microbiota Transfers or FMT where 00:13:06 It’s the first draft of wisdom delivered Related video: The Secret Intelligence of Plants —    • The Secret Intelligence of Plants (New Res...   gut brain axis, enteric nervous system, vagus nerve