Elizabeth Dirico
Neuroscience across the curriculum
October 13th 2015
Could Blood Flow Shape Our Perception?
In line with popular belief, my previous understanding of hemodynamics was that vasculature systematically dilates and constricts in order to allocate the delivery of nutrients to a target region of bodily tissue. However Chris Moore, called me to question my previous perceptions with his compelling research that suggests that this in fact could be a great over simplification in the role of blood flow.
Chris Moore is a Brown University professor and leading researchers behind the revolutionary Hemo-neural Hypothesis, the idea that Hemodynamics (vaso constriction/dilation) can influence neural activity. This past week, the Trinity College community had the privilege of attending a lecture presented by Moore. He began by describing a multitude of complex laboratory techniques and equipment that he in collaboration with his Grad students had been designing for the past few decades. He then drew significance to these by postulating his original research question, is there a correlation between hemodynamic and cognitive perception? A question that was ahead of his time in that the technology needed to test this theory was not yet in existence. So began his long journey to design equipment that could adequately test this question.
Moore’s finding were compiled in his 2008 publication The hemo-neural hypothesis: on the role of blood flow in information processing. The majority of his research focuses on the neocortex, a region in the brain that is coincidentally responsible for both processing information and regulating blood flow. Overall, there is overwhelming evidence that suggests a linkage exists between blood flow and perception. For Example, a remarkable number of shared mechanisms and similar anatomical organization indicates that the physiological components are in place for the two systems to work synergistically with one another. Similarly, another way of looking at patterns of increased blood flow is to consider that they are akin to the sub threshold neural activity of the brain. Such a theory could explain how blood flow can be directed to a highly specific location such as a single glomerulus within the olfactory bulb. Additionally, Moore spoke of single cells that he found to be resting right atop vasculature and believed to play a role in modulating blood flow based on signals received from the brain.
Chris Moore continues to research and develop his hemodynamic hypothesis along side his graduate students to whom he credited a large portion of his success. In his closing remarks he emphasized the importance of collaboration, forgoing the pursuit of a scientific breakthrough in the interest of recognition and working jointly to combine brainpower and resources with competitors for the good of scientific advancement.
