"The matter of the heart is a matter that lies on the blood of the heart. It is perceived as the seat of mind apart from the five-viññāṇa minds. The matter of the heart is described in Pāḷi “hadaya vatthu”, meaning the heart that is the base of the mind. " (Nandamālābhiva.msa: Fundamental Abhidhamma, p. 52)
There seems to be some evidence from neuroscience that the above statement based upon the third collection of the tipitaka (Abhidhamma) might be based upon correct oberservations. This is the abstract of the relevant study:
Spontaneous fluctuations of ongoing neural activity substantially affect sensory and cognitive performance. Because bodily signals are constantly relayed up to the neocortex, neural responses to bodily signals are likely to shape ongoing activity. Here, using magnetoencephalography, we show that in humans, neural events locked to heartbeats before stimulus onset predict the detection of a faint visual grating in the posterior right inferior parietal lobule and the ventral anterior cingulate cortex, two regions that have multiple functional correlates and that belong to the same resting-state network. Neither fluctuations in measured bodily parameters nor overall cortical excitability could account for this finding. Neural events locked to heartbeats therefore shape visual conscious experience, potentially by contributing to the neural maps of the organism that might underlie subjectivity. Beyond conscious vision, our results show that neural events locked to a basic physiological input such as heartbeats underlie behaviorally relevant differential activation in multifunctional cortical areas. ( Hyeong-Dong Park et al.: Spontaneous fluctuations in neural responses to heartbeats predict visual detection; Spontaneous fluctuations in neural responses to heartbeats predict visual detection | Nature Neuroscience)
See also: https://stm.sciencemag.org/content/6/229/229ec53
What are your thoughts to this, if you like to share? Mettā and may your heart be always well!