The Second Brain: A Groundbreaking New Understanding of Nervous Disorders of the Stomach and Intestine

If you are planning to be a student of medicine or neuro-psychology, then you seriously might start with this book. Gershon shares his 30 years of research of the gut and its enteric nervous system in a detailed narative account, which is technical but very readable to the interested student. Until his research in this book revealed that the gut has nerve cells that act as a second brain, the gut went far too long unrecognized as capable of being an independent functioning organism, and its importance in both medical health as well as psychological health had taken a back seat to the head brain.I have used his remarkable work as a primary reference in my own book to further validate psychological findings in my own clinical studies on the intelligence of the gut instincts and a new gut psychology. Without his work, my thesis would have lacked the neurologicaI and biological validation it needed to come forth as a viable new theory in modern psychological thought. I highly recommend Dr. Michael Gershon's groundbreaking book.Martha Loveauthor of What's Behind Your Belly Button?: A Psychological Perspective of the Intelligence of Human Nature and Gut Instinct

If you struggle with any kind of guy issue this is your book!! The Brain-Gut Connection is explained more in this book and it helped me understand what and how to deal with my IBS-C better. It was hard for me to understand why I was having flare-ups until I read this book. My doctors never really explained it to me in depth like this.Must read!! Any type of gut stomach issue

The first second was dull... so I put the book on the shelf. But I idly picked it up a while later and started reading randomly in the middle - and it was very interesting. So I went back to read and with great interest read the whole middle section on how the digestive system works and how these parts of the body regulate and monitor themselves. The last section on how the research is done isn't bad either, now that I'm into the topic. Maybe I'll go back and read the first section, too.As a layperson, you do have to be prepared to not really understand all the biochemistry and anatomy, but he does a surprisingly good job of making it easy to get the picture even if you don't follow all the neurotransmitters - I finally understand the gall bladder! And there's a lot of touches of humor and some anecdotes that make it quite pleasant reading.

There's a tremendous amount of medical learning within these pages. For some, it may be too much, if you aren't familiar with basic medical anatomy, physiology, and terminology. If you're a layperson with a curious mind to understand how the gastro-intestinal process works, then take a seat. I fit the above and devoured its contents. My impressions of Dr. Gershon is what a, kind, sincere, gentle, caring, inquisitive, and determined man with a wit to soften the content he attempts to explain. Those who were fortunate to share as students in his lab are very lucky indeed to have been within his sphere.With this said, if you're looking for cures, answers to why your belly isn't happy, protocols to follow, etc... this isn't the book for you. Although you may connect some dots and gain insight with a personal "A-ha" moment, there's lots of acronyms of lab concoctions that will readily bring on a yawn.Dr. Gershon best explains his efforts with this book in his closing statement, " I did not intend this book to be a "how to" document, explaining to readers how to cope with a variety of gastrointestinal complaints. In that sense, like my research, no disease of a kind that I could explain to my father is going to be cured by what can be found in these pages. On the other hand, there is a disease that I very much hope my literal effort will attack. It is the disease of despair that is faced by so many of the victims of an unmanageable gut. I really feel for these individuals, whose tortured existence has for so long brought out the worst in the very people to whom they have turned for help".Thank you Dr. Gershon.

I started reading this book after The Colbert Report plugged it (IIRC) as kind of a joke about "thinking with your gut". I was curios to learn about this other nervous system that you don't really hear much about; how it's independent of the central nervous system (in ways), and how similar chemicals and processes operate on both.So here's the good part: the first few chapters are a very educational review of how our guts work. This part I found very illuminating and interesting, and it's too bad it ended so quickly.Now, the bad. Once Gershon starts talking about his own research and advances in his field in general it just becomes incredibly tedious. I also found it distracting when the author repeatedly makes comments against "cruel" experiments in animals (not _his_ experiments of course, which are, supposedly, a real treat to the subjects).So the first few chapters give you information at 90mph, and then rest is a slow 2mph trek through recent research in excruciating detail.The biggest disappointment, however, is the fact that the book just doesn't deliver on its title. A "groundbreaking new understanding of nervous disorders of the stomach" made me expect cool revelations about how the gut can actually suffer nervous disorders similar to those in the brain - i.e. "depressed gut syndrome", or "stomach madness". None of that. What a gip! So big whoop, Serotonin also plays a big part in the gut. That's essential 70% of the book right there.Read it if you're looking for an introduction to the bowls (though I'm guessing there are better introductions out there). That part of the book I thoroughly enjoyed. Just know it gets boring very quickly and doesn't improve until the end.