Some science behind the scenes
The pulsating brain
In numerous methods and activities, the key to healing and also any success related to other forms of spiritual experience are based on the signal being a pulsed one. If the signal is likely to reach the brain it, in other words, has to be a pulsed signal.
One of the reasons for this is that the brain is 'programmed' to receive all its messages from the blood stream, at least, in pulsed form. Given that numerous types of chemical messages are carried in the blood stream, it is an exceptionally important source of messages of all sorts and thus pulsed signals are key to success. The following paper explains this well
The pulsating brain: A review of experimental and clinical studies of intracranial pulsatility. Wagshul ME, Eide PK, Madsen JR. Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Department of Radiology, Bronx, NY 10461, USA. mark.wagshul@einstein.yu.edu.
The maintenance of adequate blood flow to the brain is critical for normal brain function; cerebral blood flow, its regulation and the effect of alteration in this flow with disease have been studied extensively and are very well understood.
This flow is not steady, however; the systolic increase in blood pressure over the cardiac cycle causes regular variations in blood flow into and throughout the brain that are synchronous with the heart beat.
Because the brain is contained within the fixed skull, these pulsations in flow and pressure are in turn transferred into brain tissue and all of the fluids contained therein including cerebrospinal fluid.
While intracranial pulsatility has not been a primary focus of the clinical community, considerable data have accrued over the last sixty years and new applications are emerging to this day.
Investigators have found it a useful marker in certain diseases, particularly in hydrocephalus and traumatic brain injury where large changes in intracranial pressure and in the biomechanical properties of the brain can lead to significant changes in pressure and flow pulsatility.
In this work, we review the history of intracranial pulsatility beginning with its discovery and early characterization, consider the specific technologies such as transcranial Doppler and phase contrast MRI used to assess various aspects of brain pulsations, and examine the experimental and clinical studies which have used pulsatility to better understand brain function in health and with disease.
PMID: 21349153