{"id":238289,"date":"2026-06-03T22:14:33","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T03:14:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/06\/beyond-the-brain-organs-help-shape-the-nervous-systems-that-control-them"},"modified":"2026-06-03T22:14:33","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T03:14:33","slug":"beyond-the-brain-organs-help-shape-the-nervous-systems-that-control-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/06\/beyond-the-brain-organs-help-shape-the-nervous-systems-that-control-them","title":{"rendered":"Beyond the brain: Organs help shape the nervous systems that control them"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/beyond-the-brain-organs-help-shape-the-nervous-systems-that-control-them3.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>A new Yale study reveals that major organ systems in the body aren\u2019t just passive structures operating on directions from command central\u2014the brain\u2014but instead are active participants in controlling their own functions.<\/p>\n<p>Writing in the journal <i>Nature<\/i>, a team of researchers led by Yale\u2019s Rui Chang <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41586-026-10490-y\" target=\"_blank\">demonstrates<\/a> how organs develop and maintain their own neural circuitry, which in turn communicates with the brain in a sort of two-way conversation.<\/p>\n<p>The findings provide a new understanding of how the body and brain communicate via networks of neurons embedded inside organs that constitute a mini-nervous system, called \u201corgan intrinsic nervous systems,\u201d which help control critical functions such as digestion, heart rhythm, breathing, insulin secretion, and immune responses, the researchers say.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A new Yale study reveals that major organ systems in the body aren\u2019t just passive structures operating on directions from command central\u2014the brain\u2014but instead are active participants in controlling their own functions. Writing in the journal Nature, a team of researchers led by Yale\u2019s Rui Chang demonstrates how organs develop and maintain their own neural [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-238289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238289\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}