After years of studying the form and function of neuropeptides (tiny bits of protein that consist of strings of amino acids), Candace Pert has concluded that they are responsible for our emotions ~ not only the familiar feelings of anger, fear, sadness, joy, contentment, and courage, but also spiritual inspiration, awe, bliss, and other states of consciousness that scientists have never physiologically explained.

Scientists have found neuropeptide receptors throughout the nervous system, and Pert’s research has shown that the immune system also produces its own. She has come to believe that the brain and the nervous, endocrine, and immune systems are interlocked in a “psychoimmuneoendocrine” network that serves as a multidirectional, body wide system in which every part communicates with every other part. This concept nullifies the prevailing idea that the mind has power over the body. “Instead, emotions are the nexus between mind and matter, going back and forth between the two and influencing both.” says Pert.

“The term ‘mobile brain’ is a good way to describe the psychosomatic network [of communication]. Everyone of the zones, or systems of the network ~ the hormonal, the gastrointestinal, the neural, and the immune ~ communicate with the others via the peptides and messenger-specific peptide receptors. As these biochemicals of emotion carry information tot he major systems of the body, they link these systems into the bodymind….we must see emotions as cellular signals that are involved in the process of translating information into physical reality, literally, transforming mind into matter and influencing health.” says Pert.

By Karen Goldman, Molecules of Emotion, A Conversaion with Candace Pert