My argument is that the three classic areas of neuroscience, endocrinology, and immunology, with their various organs – the brain (which is the key organ that the neuroscientists study), the glands, and the immune system (consisting of the spleen, the bone marrow, the lymph nodes, and of course the cells circulating throughout the body) – that these three areas are actually joined to each other in a bidirectional network of communication and that the information “carriers” are the neuropeptides.
Dr. Candace Pert (1946-2013) was an internationally recognized neuroscientist and pharmacologist who published over 250 research articles and was a significant contributor to the emergence of “mind-body” medicine as an area of legitimate scientific research in the 1980’s.
Her paper, ‘Neuropeptides and their receptors, a psychosomatic network’ (J Immunology, 1986.), and her work on the first HIV entry inhibitor ‘Peptide T’ (subject of the 2013 movie “The Dallas Buyers Club”) propelled her into mainstream fame, earning her the titles “The Mother of Psychoneuroimmunology” and “The Goddess of Neuroscience” by her many fans.
In addition to being a highly creative neuroscientist, Dr. Pert was also an activist. She lead the movement to advance the cultural and scientific context in which we understand, experience, and employ our imagination, beliefs, and expectations for the purpose of activating our highest realm of potentiality. The mechanism through which this was to be achieved was through our emotions and their stored memories in what she called the “bodymind”, intentionally written without a hyphen in order to emphasize unity of its component parts.
In this concept Candace realized the unified and integrated level at which physiology, mind, and consciousness access one another to enhance or diminish wellness.
While these concepts are currently accepted in current healing and medical practices, they were considered laughable, radical, and even heretical to the medical cannon thirty years ago when Dr. Pert authored her first scientific papers and popular books on these themes. Despite this resistance, Dr. Pert did not waiver in her advocacy and new knowledge has supported and extended her ground-breaking ideas since that time.
A groundbreaking theory
One of the most famous theories brought forward was Dr. Pert was her theory of the emotions. The idea behind it was that emotions are mediated by receptor active peptides, such as the neuropeptides and immune system cytokines, and that these act as agents which integrate communication between the brain and the body. Candace thought emotions were stored in the body at the receptors, and that healthy communication via emotional expression was the key to integrating the mind and the body. She called these biological mediators “Informational Substances” to emphasize the primacy of information and of mind. She taught that mind existed both within and beyond the body via consciousness, its animating principle.
She believed that emotions were one way to transduce the information of the bodymind between and among individuals and groups. Wellness practices such as somatic, behavioral, and contemplative modalities thereby had a physiological basis and could be used to promote or enhance health and recovery from illness by integrating the body’s native repair and regenerative systems, providing a biochemistry and modern interpretation of The Wisdom of the Body, one of the first books written on the subject in 1932 by Walter Bradford Cannon.
Dr. Pert’s ideas were taken forward by many others and there continues to be great interest in research studies in complementary medicine at The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) . Her vision was for a new type of medicine in which such practices would make a significant contribution to health, with or without the addition of traditional allopathic practice.
The discovery that started it all
While undergoing graduate studies in 1978, Dr. Pert discovered the elusive opiate receptor, a major step in the advancement of neuroscience. While this discovery earned the coveted Albert Lasker Award (often a precursor to the Nobel Prize), the prize went to Dr. Solomon H. Snyder, the individual who headed the lab, without citing Dr. Pert or any of the other laboratory assistants.
Having felt that she had been denied credit for her own work, Dr. Pert wrote a letter to the head of the Lasker Foundation, attributing her exclusion in part to being a woman, which caused a sensation in the industry.
Despite the controversy, this work launched the new field of molecular neuropharmacology whereby the receptor mechanisms within the brain that are responsible for the actions of psychoactive drugs could be determined, and new drugs created. Her methods subsequently became and continue to remain widely used by many researchers to identify and study peptide and hormone receptors.
While continuing to break gender barriers in the field, Dr. Pert became Chief of the Section on Brain Biochemistry, Clinical Neuroscience Branch, at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) in 1983. Later in her career, she held a Research Professorship in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at Georgetown University School of Medicine in Washington, DC.
She proved acupuncture induced pain relief was due to the stimulation of beta-endorphin release, as was bliss from sexual release. From her pioneering NIMH work in the early to mid-1980’s arose her next notable accomplishment, a molecular theory of the emotions as bridging both mind and body. In fact Candace declared there was no distinction and coined the term “bodymind” to note this. Her scientific work on these topics brought her to public discovery as a result of the Bill Moyers series and book, Healing and the Mind and she started to give lectures to both professional and lay audiences around the world.
One of her principal scientific papers on these topics was Neuropeptides And Their Receptors: A Psychosomatic Network, J. Immunology 135:820s-826s, 1985. (Pert, 1985), that closed with the notable observation that “Neuropeptides and their receptors thus join the brain, glands, and immune system in a network of communication between brain and body, probably representing the biochemical substrate of emotion”. She went on to declare the body was in fact the subconscious mind, and this groundbreaking idea was widely incorporated and accepted by the massive community of therapists, movement educators, healers of all types and body workers that found that her research resonated with their work on a practical level.
Shortly thereafter in 1986, Dr. Pert invented what appeared to be the first HIV entry inhibitor, another first-of-its-kind discovery which established an entirely new class of drugs for this newly-discovered disease. It would take more than ten years until scientists identified the chemokine receptors that her drugs acted upon and would then subsequently enter clinical practice as treatments.
The body of scientific work on the emotions launched her next field of influence that went broadly into the cultural zeitgeist. Her 1997 book Molecules of Emotion, Why you Feel the Way you Feel (Scribner), received wide acclaim for its bridging of science and psychosomatic medicine. Besides telling the story of her discoveries it also gives a glimpse into her evolved thinking process – all while providing an inside view into the creative journey of one of the world’s great contemporary scientists.
At the time of her death in 2013, Dr. Pert was working as the Chief Scientific Officer of Rapid Pharmaceuticals, which she co-founded. After her passing her work on the AIDS drug Peptide T continues in Creative Bio-Peptides, Inc., a new company that is currently developing new orally active analogs for chronic pain, dementias, chronic traumatic encephalopathy, skin disorders, and brain injury.
Books, Films & Other Media
Dr. Pert appeared in the films The Healing Field: Exploring Energy & Consciousness, What the Bleep Do We Know!?? and The People vs the State of Illusion and was an on-air contributor to Bill Moyer’s TV program Healing and the Mind. She is the author of the books Molecules of Emotion, The Science Behind Mind-Body Medicine (Scribner, 1997), Everything You Need to Know to Feel Go(o)d (Hay House, 2006), and The Science of Golf and Life. She also authored the musical guided imagery CD Psychosomatic Wellness: Healing your Body-Mind. and Healing the Hurting, Shining the Light, A Chakra Meditation for all your BodyMinds. Her AIDS drug Peptide T was featured in the 2013 Oscar winning movie Dallas Buyers Club.
Dr. Pert led the path for many future authors to explore these topics who in turn acknowledged Dr. Pert for her wide influence such as Deepak Chopra, who acknowledged in a speech at her memorial service that much of his work was made possible by Dr. Pert’s scientific theories.
Candace’s greatest legacy however continues to be realized through the life-altering medicines that she devoted much of her life to discovering, developing and one day disseminating as treatments for a host of debilitating diseases that affect millions of people worldwide.
Her abounding compassion and caring were evident in her work, her writing and in her myriad of personal relationships. She remains a source of inspiration and love to so many whose lives she touched.
