FACTS ABOUT CONSCIOUSNESS AND BRAIN TEMPERATURE ~~~~~ News From the Research Notes ~~~~~~ Recently I explained to BroJon readers about my research into the
affect of brain temperature and the human cognitive state called
consciousness. Put simply when we are awake, our normal brain temperature is
about 98 to 99 degrees F (37 degrees C). When we are asleep the brain
temperature drops to about 95 to 97 degrees F (35 degree C). This
sleep/wake temperature change is controlled by the circadian rhythms of the
body. The brain temperature and thus mental consciousness can also be
controlled externally, by changing the temperature. By using drugs which raise the brain temperature such as, caffeine,
Dexedrine, Ritalin, Prozac, Ecstasy and drugs generally called �uppers???,
the state of alertness, wakefullness or consciousness is raised. While
using drugs which lower the brain temperature such as the opiates,
Heroin and Morphine, anti-histamines, and strong doses of alcohol, and
drugs called �downers???, the state of alertness is dulled and often sleep is
induced. The primary function of these psychoactive drugs is not to
make changes in certain parts of the brain, but simply to control the
overall temperature feedback mechanism between the hypothalamus and
thyroid gland to thus, raise and lower the temperature of the brain itself.
They all pretty much work the same way. This information was even known intuitively by the ancients. In
ancient Greece and Rome, hyperactive, rash, type-A people were called �hot
heads.??? And calm, serene slower thinkers were said to have a �cool
head.??? We still use those terms today. This effect even controlled human
behaviors such as wearing hats to warm the brain. And even affected
human physiology by causing male-pattern-baldness to cool and counteract
the brain temperature-raising effect of excess testosterone. Fifteen years ago I began a series of experiments to externally change
the brain temperature. I discovered what I call the �Thyroid Paradox.???
The function of the thyroid gland is not to set the temperature of the
body, but to control the temperature of the brain. The actual
temperature of the body or torso, is secondary and only based on the
temperature state or circadian rhythm state of the brain. The thyroid gland acts as a multiple-stage thermostat computer which
controls the temperature of the brain. But what sets the thermostat
temperature is the feedback from the sleep/wake circadian rhythm center in
the hypothalamus in the brain. This is similar to setting your house
temperature thermostat up during the day, and then setting it back to a
lower temperature at night while you sleep. Some people today even
have computerized thermostats to automatically set the temperature up and
down at the right time of day. But no computerized thermostat is as
accurate and multi-staged as is your natural computerized thermostat �
your thyroid gland. Most of the glands in your body work by releasing chemicals called
hormones which remotely control numerous function in other parts of your
body. Most of your glands are either in your brain, in the hypothalamus,
or in your abdomen such as your liver, pancreas or adrenal glands. The
location of the thyroid gland is unique. It is in the front of your
throat just below the �Adam's apple.??? Why is it there? It is there to constantly measure and compare the temperature of the
outside air around you which goes through the bronchial tube which is
attached to the back of the thyroid gland. It is there also to measure
and compare the temperature of the blood in the two carotid arteries
going directly from the heart to the brain. The two left and right carotid
arteries pass right through the center of the the left and right lobes
of your thyroid gland. Is the function, location and purpose of the
thyroid gland, as a brain thermostat starting to make sense? How does the thyroid gland work? Assume that the thyroid senses that
the brain temperature is correct but the air temperature around you
starts to rise several degrees. To counteract the small rise in
temperature the thyroid gland, specifically the small rice grain-sized
mini-glands called the �parathyroids??? in each lobe of the thyroid gland release a
hormone which makes the lining of the lungs more permeable to the water
in your blood serum. This extra water in your lungs quickly evaporates
and cools the lungs with each breath you take. Since all of your blood
also travels through the lungs every several seconds, this effectively
cools your blood, brain and body. If the outside air temperature goes a few degrees higher and even the
blood temperature starts to rise, the thyroid gland kicks in with the
second stage of its function. It releases a hormone which acts on your
largest organ � your skin. At first, it opens the blood vessels in the
skin to dump heat directly to the air, this is called a reddening or
flushing of the skin, and the skin feels warm to the touch. A few more
degrees rise in temperature and the thyroid sends other hormones which
tell the millions of small glands in the skin called sweat glands to
take water from the blood and dump the water onto the skin surface where
it evaporates and cools the body � but really it is not just to cool the
body, but is cooling the blood going to your brain. The brain
temperature is the critical temperature. You want proof? Stick your arm in a bucket of warm water with a
temperature of 110 degrees F (43C) and it feels uncomfortable, but no big
deal. But raise your brain temperature to 110F and you'll pass out and
die. What else can I say? The purpose of the thyroid is to control
brain temperature, and not body temperature. A third stage of thyroid
function, beyond sweating, is to increase the breathing rate, called
panting, to increase the amount of heat being evaporated from the lungs to
the air. Many animals which don't sweat, such as birds, furry animals
and dogs, go directly from increased lung evaporation to panting. Very
active dogs even dump a large amount of heat by expelling lots of hot
water, called drooling. The hot drool water may be dumped directly on
the ground or even on to the pet owners face in a show of �hot blooded???
affection for the pup's owner. Isn't the thyroid a wondrous gland? When the outside air becomes colder, the thyroid again goes through
several stages of hormone production depending on the amount of
temperature difference between the air and the brain. First, the amount of water
from the blood serum going into the lungs is reduced. You surely have
noticed that on very cold days, you can �see??? your breath as the warm
moist air from your lungs condenses into visible �steamy breath.??? You
probably never noticed that after several minutes you can't see your
breath anymore. Why? That's because your thyroid has shut off the supply
of water in your lungs. You don't want to lose any body heat which can
escape by evaporation in the lungs. This tends to dry out your lungs
and sometimes this makes breathing in very cold air rather painful,
since the lining of the lung becomes dry and stiff. In a second stage, another set of thyroid hormones constrict all the
blood vessels in the skin so the skin appears ashy white and pale and
feels cold to the touch. No body heat is lost through the skin. In a
third stage, the body generates heat by physically moving the muscles
through involuntary shivering, and later in a fourth stage even increases
the metabolic rate to generate more internal body heat. The thyroid
gland is an incredibly complex biological thermostat with about ten or
more temperature set points and chemical hormone functions. The normal
set points go up and down each day with the daily sleep/wake cycles of
the circadian rhythms. And the thyroid also is a major component of the
body's immune system by raising the temperature of the body and lungs
to create fevers which stop and prevent the replication of invading
viruses at a temperature above about 101F. Without a thyroid gland and
fevers we would all die of bird flu. Birds are more primitive animals and
only have simple prototype thyroid glands which don't work the same way
our mammal thyroids work. The birds don't sweat and usually don't
produce fevers. That's why birds can die of viral bird flu by the
millions. This almost never happens with humans. It was while doing experiments with the normal operation of the thyroid
gland that I discovered the �Thyroid Paradox.??? I was trying to
discover how the operation of the thyroid gland could be manipulated to
modify, change or shift the normal circadian rhythms. In 1988 I worked with
a doctor/psychiatrist in San Jose, Californina, who was interested my
my charts and data of my own daily, monthly and annual circadian rhythms
based on my observations of my oral temperature which I took hourly and
wrote down on several pages of my daily temperature journal. I am sure
most of my friends, family and co-workers must have thought I was a
real hypochondriac since I took my temperature every hour on the hour for
several years from 1986 to 1989, and I even wrote it down. But it was
a treasure trove of scientific data. The protocol for the experiment I proposed with the doctor was that I
would use the synthetic thyroid drug, Synthroid, to shift my circadian
rhythms to an earlier awakening time by taking Synthroid in the morning
at the new earlier time. I took the usual thyroid panel of medical
tests to show that I had normal thyroid function and the doc wrote me a
prescription for a big bottle of Synthroid. As a control experiment, I
also did this test alternately each week with other protocols: using
only very bright lights in the morning at the new time, then the next
week using only L-Tryptophan capsules, then a week of Synthroid, and then
a week of Tryptophan with added B6. Each morning I took a dose of bright light or pills, and took my oral
temperature every 15 minutes for the next hour. I graphed the
first-hour rise time of my body-brain temperature for each protocol. The bright
lights and the L-Tryptophan worked perfectly and caused an hour earlier
shift to occur on Tuesday, after starting each protocol on Monday. On
the weekends I used nothing and allowed my circadian waking time to
slip back to the later normal time. With the Synthroid, it seemed to work
just like the Light and the L-tryptophan for two days and then it
seemed to fade away to nothing by the fourth day. At no time did the
tryptophan with the B6 ever work, even when I drastically increased the
dosage. This absolutely proved that the B6 had destroyed the beneficial
effect of the tryptophan by turning it into Niacin before it ever even got
to the brain. I explained my observations to my co-experimenter doctor and asked if I
could increase the dose of Synthroid. He approved. Again I observed
the same thing. I had doubled the dose from 50mg to 100mg. It seemed
to work on Tuesday and Wednesday, but by Thursday it took almost an hour
for the brain temperature to show a rise, and by Friday it had no
effect. On the next monthly cycle of the Synthroid experiment, I again
increased the dosage to 200mg and a month later to 400mg. All with the
same effect. It worked for two days and by the fourth day it did
absolutely nothing, regardless of dosage. I discussed the results, my charts and data logbooks at length with the
doctor. I said I presumed that the thyroid gland is not the master
gland which controls body temperature, as is assumed by most of the
medical profession. There must be some higher gland, probably in the
hypothalamus of the brain which sets the instantaneous changing daily
temperature-setpoint for the thyroid. This made sense, because it has been known for decades that the
circadian rhythms are somehow driven by the daytime serotonin and nighttime
melatonin which come from the Pineal Gland just above the Hypothalamus.
This is why taking tryptophan in the morning as you wake up sets the
new circadian rhythm, since both serotonin and melatonin are made in the
Pineal from tryptophan depending on the time of day you take the
tryptophan � without the B6, of course. What I had demonstrated was that I had developed a new psychological
and physiological tool for measuring normal and aberrant behavior of
chemicals in the brain simply by monitoring the rise time of the brain
temperature in the first hour of the morning. This was scientific and
repeatable. I repeated the same experiment for almost two years. My
scientific method was light-years ahead of the commonly used Hamilton
Psychological Scale method of using a survey to ask, �On a scale of 1 to 5,
after taking Sythroid do you feel better or worse than you did
yesterday???? Well, I don't know, that's like asking on a scale of 1 to 5 how
do you rate Wolfgang Mozart over Peter Gabriel? Well, I don't know �
depends on my mood, and if I just aced my midterm exam or if the IRS just
called me in for a tax audit. So much, for the Hamilton Scale. No
way does that compare with the scientific slope of the line on the
morning rise time temperature chart I told the doc I wanted to use my new numerically scientific
psychological tool to continue the experiment using other drugs which would
directly affect the temperature set point in the brain and not just in the
thyroid. At that point the doctor balked. He seemed to lose interest
in the experiment. I assumed, even though he was the doctor and I
wasn't, I had already gone beyond his level of expertise and he had no idea
what to do next. He had said he had studied the Pineal/Thyroid axis in
his last year of med school at Stanford, but I don't think he really
understood what it meant or how it worked. After that, he even refused
to answer my phone calls. I also realized I had just done a medical
no-no. I had just used the scientific method to demonstrate that most
doctors have no clue about what they are doing to their patients. And my
co-experimenter doctor certainly did not want to co-publish a
scientific paper showing that most docs are dopes. Millions of times a year, patients go into the doctor's office
complaining of mild depression. After a Hamilton Scale test the doc says,
�Yep, a mild case of depression. Here try this prescription for Synthroid.
It usually works, and if not we can try something stronger.??? Several
days later the patient calls the doc -- �It's wonderful. It works, It
works. I woke up this morning feeling all bright and bushytailed and
rarin' to go.??? What neither the patient nor the doctor knows is that
after several days, the Synthroid is as useless as a placebo sugar pill.
But the patient, �believing??? that it works, will continue taking it for
years. Normally taking placebos is safe. But in this case the patient
is �hooked??? on a placebo which can cost several thousand dollars a
year. I consider that a serious side affect which only helps Big Pharma
and not the patient. An even worse, though a less common situation is when a patient comes
to see the doctor complaining of always feeling warm, always sweaty,
feeling jumpy and nervous a lot, and a few other similar related symptoms.
The doc says, �Oh you have hyper-thyroidism. Your thyroid gland is
putting out too much thyroid hormone. We can fix that.??? So the doc gets
out his set of X-acto knives and starts whittling on your thyroid gland
as if he were carving a balsa wood kit model of a Piper Centurion � and
if he carves on it just right he thinks he might just be able to get
this puppy to fly. Yeah right. Most docs are taught that the thyroid gland is like most other glands,
like the liver, pancreas or adrenals, and if you carve away a part of
it, that will reduce the output of that gland's hormone. Wrong! The
thyroid is more like 10 different glands, all in one, each with its own
temperature set point and specific hormone to change the amount of water
in the lungs, or to cause sweating of the skin or cause the muscles to
shiver, and many other physical functions. The thyroid is not just
like a fine Swiss watch, it is more like a fine Swiss chronometer with
hundreds of gears and dials for navigating a ship around the world, many
more than most docs know and understand. Carving on a thyroid with
X-acto knives is more like trying to adjust your computerized automatic
setback wall thermostat for your furnace with a sledge hammer. Your
original complaint was the temperature was too high. So the doc hits the
thermostat with a sledge hammer and, sure enough, the furnace goes off,
and temperature goes down. So far so good. But then what? In the case of the smashed furnace wall thermostat, you replace it with
a simple light switch to turn the furnace on and off. When its too
cold you turn the switch on to turn the furnace on, and then later you
turn it off to cool the house. But you are constantly jumping up and down
trying to adjust the temperature. You probably would wish you had your
old thermostat back. In the case of your carved-on thyroid gland you
are constantly adjusting your medication dosage of Synthroid, trying to
get a normal body temperature depending on your circadian rhythms, or
whether you usually have a sedentary day job and then have vigorous
outside activity while mountain climbing on your vacation. Or even if you
move from one climate to another which is much colder or hotter. You
are hooked on Synthroid for the rest of your life, and probably wish you
had your old thyroid back again. Alright, so what would I do instead? I have already mentioned two
protocols, using bright lights in the morning just as you wake up for about
� hour, or take a 500mg capsule of L-tryptophan just as you wake up and
about � hour before you ingest anything else such as coffee or
breakfast. I have tested both of these methods for 20 years and they are both
effective, and you can even use both together. There is no overdosing
of good health. You can buy very expensive �morning bright lights??? from �medical
con-artists??? who make outrageous claims for their product. They cost about
$300 dollars or more. I made my first home-built bright lite in 1986,
using 8 fluorescent tubes and a box for about $100 dollars. I got the
design and specification from Dr. Albert Lewey, a renowned specialist in
SAD therapy. I found it worked as specified when I used it in an
experiment to shift my circadian rhythms forward or back several hours, but
I wanted something rather less expensive that I could recommend to my
friends. You can buy a bright light that works just as well for about
$10.00 from any Home Depot, warehouse hardware store or even on the
Internet. The name of the bright light product by many makers is �500 W Portable
Halogen Work Light.??? If it's made by Bayco or similar brand name you
know you have found the right one if it sells for about $9.00 plus
shipping and handling. One caution though, they get real hot, so be careful
where you set it, since it can melt plastic if it gets to close. I use
it about 4 to 5 feet away from me. And at that distance my luminosity
meter shows it has the same 20,000 to 30,000 Lux as the rising sun, and
even Dr. Lewey's original medical morning light specification. It
works and its cheap. I set mine on an automatic timer for the first half
hour each morning next to my computer while I edit the morning BroJon
Gazette. I have used mine every morning since 1987. It used to be that you could not buy L-tryptophan at any price, even if
you tried through �underground??? sources since the CDC, FDA ban dating
from November 1989. For many years it was only marketed for use by farm
animals, but since it was USP certified for purity and dosage is was
actually safer than the old L-tryptophan sold in drug and health stores
prior to 1989. It seems the USDA and the farm industry was more
concerned about the health and safety of farm animals, than was the FDA and
CDC for the health of human beings. It seems the FDA and CDC wanted to
market the potentially harmful and very expensive Prozac and SSRI's so
that Big Pharma can make about $30 billion a year, instead of using the
cheap and safer natural L-tryptophan. A computer search on the Internet will now show hundreds of sources for
L-tryptophan. Make sure the product says �USP.??? �Pure,??? and �500mg.???
You do not want any added minerals, vitamins or amino acids. NO added
anything. Use it only first thing in the morning when you wake up, or
last thing at night before you go to bed. In the morning it makes
serotonin, and at night it makes melatonin - during the transition into and
from sleep. That is your circadian rhythm clock. You can kick it up
in the morning or down at night. It really works the same way. Its
the same as pushing a child on a swing. It makes no difference whether
you push from the front or back, but you have to push in the right
direction and at the right time. Do both if you want, since you can't
overdose with the L-tryptophan. I have found that after several days of
use, a maintenance daily dose can be as low as 50 to 100 mg. I have tried
cutting the 500mg gel capsules in half, and sometimes filling my own
100 mg capsules. I have even found it works to take a large capsule
every other day. But that complicates matters, since you have to remember
what day it is when you first wake up. Hmm let's see, yesterday was
Tuesday in France so today must be Wednesday in Germany -- or is it
Thursday in Italy. I'll have to wake up and read the newspaper to figure
that one out. I keep it simple. One capsule, of any size, every
morning, and then get on with my life. So now you know more about the science of the thyroid gland and
circadian rhythms than you'll find in any medical textbook or scientific
journal. But what about the �Thyroid Paradox???? That's coming next. It is
a set of simple experiments, or even simple therapy you can do anytime
yourself or in the doctors office. It takes almost no time, and costs
practically no money, just using stuff you have around the house. It
will show to you that your body and brain are working according to
�manufacturers specification??? and if not, what you can do about it -- Such a
deal! My earlier explanation about the function of brain temperature and the
sleep/wake cycle prompted one astute BroJon reader, named Suzanne, to
ask if raising the brain temperature would bring patients out of a long
term coma. Here's what I explained:
Suzanne -- I have looked at that problem and I'm not sure if works for
coma. When we are awake, we can close our eyes and see daydream images. But
we are still awake. The closing of eyes causes slow alpha waves which
open up neural connections to the right side of the brain where images
are processed. When we are asleep, the functioning of the left logical side of the
brain which processes muscle motion is not stopped, but the left brain
signals are temporarily disconnected, mostly so we don't actually do
physical activity like sleep walking. So at that time all we have is the
signals from the right side of the brain which process images we call
dreams. In the case of coma, it seems that the left side of the brain is not
functioning, as when asleep, And the lack of motor function can be
caused by physical damage to the brain or other causes such as hypnotic
suggestion which can also shut off the brain. This can also be self-caused
in the case of swooning or fainting. The other condition of coma which is different from sleep is that the
patient cannot be aroused as from normal sleep. If the temporary
coma-like condition is from swooning and fainting, then smelling salts or
ammonia seem to arouse the patient. But in actual coma this does not seem
to work. Thus, probably what would determine if a coma patient can be aroused by
raising the brain temperature is if there is brain activity in the
right brain indicating that dreaming is occurring. If both sides of the
brain are disconnected electrically but still functioning, with only the
lower brain stem working to maintain basic body function such as
breathing then it may not work to simply raise the brain temperature. Since I am the first person to notice the relationship between
consciousness and brain temperature, nobody has done any research in this area.
I hope my articles might entice some enterprising medical researchers
to experiment and take a look at the possibility. For more information, do a search on the BroJon Gazette front page for
related articles on this topic... Marshall Smith Editor, Brother Jonathan Gazette This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it