The traditional view is that mind is intelligent and the body is stupid. Recent research suggests that the whole body, and not just the brain, acts as a complex parallel processing system. If the whole body is intelligent, then intelligent processes normally attributed to psychology may occur in the non-brain body. This article shows how self-organizing learning error in a brain-body system creates the potential for a new type of pathology, network pathology, that is distributed across over the whole body. The intelligent body concept is illustrated with four examples: chemical sensitivity, asthma, chronic fatigue syndrome and obesity. Network pathology develops when normally adaptive self-organizational processes malfunction so that control system parameters are altered in a way that creates suboptimal self-regulation. Subtle therapies are needed, in addition to the conventional robust therapies to correct network pathology.
Ader R. , & Cohen, N. (1985). CNS-immune system interaction: Conditioning phenomena. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 8, 379-394.
2.
Ader R. , Cohen, N., & Felten, D. (1995). Psychoneuroimmunology: interactions between the nervous system and the immune system. Lancet, 345, 99-103.
3.
Balint, M. (1957). The doctor, his patient and the illness. London: Pitman Medical (Reprinted 1986, Churchill Livingstone).
4.
Carver, C. S. , & Scheier, M. F. (1990). Origins and functions of positive and negative affect: a control-process view. Psychological Review, 97, 19-35.
5.
Cilliers, P. (1998). Complexity and postmodernism: Understanding complex systems. London: Routledge.
6.
Cooper, C. L. (1996). Handbook of stress, medicine, and health. Boca Raton: CRC Press.
7.
Demitrack, M. A. , & Crofford, L. J. (1998). Evidence for and pathophysiologic implications of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis dysregulation in fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 840, 684-697.
8.
Ellis, R. , & Humphreys, G. W. (1999). Connectionist psychology: A text with readings. Hove, UK: Psychology Press.
9.
Gray, J. A. (1985). Issues in the neuropsychology of anxiety. In A. H. Tuma & J. D. Maser (Eds.), Anxiety and the anxiety disorders (pp. 5-25). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
10.
Hyland, M. E. (1985). Do person variables exist in different ways?American Psychologist, 40, 1003-1010.
11.
Hyland, M. E. (1988). Motivational control theory: An integrative framework. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 55, 642-651.
12.
Hyland, M. E. (1999). A connectionist theory of asthma. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Allergy, 29, 1467-1473.
13.
Hyland, M. E. (2001a). The intelligent body. New Scientist, 170 (2292), 32-33.
14.
Hyland, M. E. (2001b). A two-phase network theory of atopy and asthma causation: A possible solution to the impact of genes, hygiene and air quality. Clinical and Experimental Allergy, 3, 1485-1492.
15.
Hyland, M. E. (2001c). Extended network learning error: A new way of conceptualising chronic fatigue syndrome. Psychology and Health, 16, 273-287.
16.
Joint Working Party of the Royal Colleges of Physicians, Psychiatrists and General Practitioners . (1996). Chronic fatigue syndrome. London: Royal College of Physicians.
17.
Kirsch, I. , & Hyland, M. E. (1987). How thoughts affect the body: A metatheoretical framework. Journal of Mind and Behavior, 8, 417-434.
18.
Koch, C. , & Laurent, G. (1999). Complexity and the nervous system. Science, 284, 96-98.
19.
Lawrie, S. , MacHale, S., Power, M., & Goodwin, G. (1997). Is the chronic fatigue syndrome best understood as a primary disturbance of the sense of effort?Psychological Medicine, 27, 995-999.
20.
Lendreman, K. E. (1986). Philosophy and medicine. London: Gower.
21.
Lloyd, A. , Hickie, I., Wilson, A., & Wakefield, D. (1994). Immune function in chronic fatigue syndrome and depression: Implications for understanding these disorders and for therapy. Clinical Immunotherapeutics, 2, 84-88.
22.
Maier, S. F. , & Watkins, L. R. (1999). Bidirectional communication between the brain and immune system. Animal Behaviour, 57, 741-751.
23.
McClelland, J. L. , & Rumelhart, D. E. (1988). Explorations in parallel distributed processing: A handbook of models, programs and exercises. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press/Bradford Books.
24.
McClelland, J. L. , Rumelhart, D. E., & the PDP Research Group. (1986). Parallel distributed processing: Explorations in the microstructure of cognition, vol. 2: Psychological and biological models. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press/Bradford Books.
25.
Miller, C. (1996). Chemical sensitivity: symptom, syndrome or mechanism for disease?Toxicology, 11, 69-86.
26.
Mook, D. G. (1969). Some determinants of preference and aversion in the rat. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 157, 1158-1175.
27.
Pagani, M. , & Lucini, D. (1999). Chronic fatigue syndrome: A hypothesis focusing on the autonomic nervous system. Clinical Science, 96, 117-125.
28.
Richter, C. P. (1942-1943). Total self-regulatory functions in animals and human beings. Harvey Lectures, 38, 63-103.
29.
Rosenberg, C. E. (1977). The therapeutic revolution: Medicine, meaning, and social change in the nineteenth century. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 20, 485-506.
30.
Scott, L. V. , Medbak, S., & Dinan, T. G. (1998). Blunted adrenocorticotropin and cortisol responses to corticotropin-releasing hormone stimulation in chronic fatigue syndrome. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 97, 450-457.
31.
Sharpe, M. , Hawton, K., Clements, A., & Cowen, P. J. (1997). Increased brain serotonin function in men with chronic fatigue syndrome. British Medical Journal, 315, 164-165.
32.
Straub, R. H. , & Mannel, D. N. (1999). How the immune system puts the brain to sleep. Nature Medicine, 5, 877-879.
33.
Tirelli, U. , Marotta, G., Improta, S., & Pinto, A. (1994). Immunological abnormalities in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome. Scandinavian Journal of Immunology, 40, 601-608.
34.
VollmerConna U. , Lloyd, A., Hickie, I., & Wakefield, D. (1998). Chronic fatigue syndrome: An immunological perspective. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 32, 523-527.
35.
Weng, G. , Bhalla, U., Iyengar, R. (1999). Complexity in biological signaling systems. Science, 284, 92-96.
36.
Wessely, S. , Hotopf, M., & Sharpe, M. (1998). Chronic fatigue and its syndromes. New York: Oxford University Press.
