Some of the same brain regions that run the heart also handle language
People have courted by letter for centuries, and Barrett suggests words reach regions that help control the body.
youtube.com · Lisa Feldman Barrett: Love, Evolution, and the Human Brain | Lex Fridman Podcast #140
Lisa Feldman Barrett, a brain scientist and author of the book Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain, says words can affect the body at a distance because language and body control share brain territory.
Barrett offers her own example. She says she can send "words I love you from the United States to my close friend in Belgium," and even though her friend cannot hear her voice or see her face, Barrett says she will change her friend's heart rate, breathing, and metabolism. She says someone could also text something like asking if your door is locked, which "would affect your nervous system in an unpleasant way."
The reason, in her account, is anatomy. She says some of the brain regions important for processing language are also important for controlling major organ systems, including the automatic system that guides the heart and lungs, along with hormone and immune control.
She points to birds as a parallel. In birds, she says, the neurons responsible for song also help run the bird's bodily functions, and some scientists think that bird system developed from a comparable starting plan as the human system for language. These language regions do many things, she says, and one of them is helping control major organ systems.
In Barrett's reasoning, that overlap may help make sense of something people have done for centuries, falling in love through letters. She says touch and smell and other bodily signals help but are not necessary. Whether words alone could sustain a lifelong, text only romantic relationship, including with an artificial system, she calls an empirical question that has not been answered yet.
Questions people ask
Does this mean kind words can boost my immune system and keep me from getting sick?
No. Barrett's point is narrower: some language regions overlap with regions that help regulate the heart, lungs, hormones, and immune activity, so words can briefly shift heart rate, breathing, or stress responses. There is no evidence in the source that kind words alone prevent infection or cure disease.
Why bring birds into an explanation about human love?
It is a comparison across species. Some scientists propose that bird song circuits and human language circuits developed from a similar layout, which would help explain why both systems also help regulate the body. It remains a scientific proposal, not settled fact.
Could a person really stay in love for life with someone, or something, they never meet?
Barrett leaves that as an unanswered empirical question. She doubts the average person could sustain a lifelong text only romance, and she adds that a bond with an inanimate object would probably leave life shorter by missing mutual body regulation benefits. She also says it would be harder for some people than for others.