An essay on the circulation as behavior

Abstract

Most conceptual models of the organization of the cardiovascular system begin with the premise that the nervous system regulates the metabolic and nonmetabolic reflex adjustments of the circulation. These models assume that all the neurally mediated responses of the circulation are reactive, i.e., reflexes elicited by adequate stimuli. This target article suggests that the responses of the circulation are conditional in three senses. First, as Sherrington argued, reflexes are conditional in that they never operate in a vacuum but in a context together with other reflexes. Guided by functional utility, they interact rather than add. Second, as Pavlov argued, stimuli acquire meanings as a result of experience. This notion of stimulus effect plus the Sherringtonian notion of conditionality suggest that association is one of the ways stimuli eliciting cardiovascular reflexes acquire their meanings and thus their relative strengths. Finally, as Skinner and others have argued, operants are responses that act upon the environment to obtain consequences – that is, stimuli. As operants, cardiovascular responses fulfill a major biological need, functioning proactively. The cardiovascular response is an integral component of the animal's behavior regardless of whether it is an elicited reflex or the eliciting stimulus acquired its properties as a result of the genetic inheritance of the animal or through experience, or the cardiovascular response is emitted in anticipation of an environmental consequence. The main theses of this essay are: (1) behavior is an integrated set of responses and the circulation is one of the response systems comprising behavior; (2) behavior is, in part, determined by its functional significance within a context; (3) the contextual factors operative at the time of the behavior have a major role in determining which of the set of possible responses will determine the final act, that is, which behavior will be the effective response and which other behaviors will be concomitants.

Private versus inner in multiscaled interpretation

“…… The pinched nerve may be regarded as a stimulus, but it is not private, except perhaps in the trivial sense that no one has taken the necessary X-rays. (p. 196) The trickiness of this is drawn out by Engel (1986), who cited a variety of experiments showing that various components of the circulatory system (merely blood flowing through particular loci, and usually construed as dynamic parts of the organism), depending on the arrangements that relate them to external events, can be not just parts of reactive adjustment to the configuration of the whole organism's ongoing activity, but also can be conditioned responses in the Pavlovian sense, or even operant responses maintained or modified by environmental consequences. Just as in the case of overt behavior, the topographical form of an activity does not tell us what kind of behavior it is; so also, the anatomical locus of an internal event does not tell us whether the activity there should be construed as behavior or as a dynamic part of the organism as a whole.…”

Psychosomatic medicine, behavioral medicine, just plain medicine.

“…The clinical significance of this is clear: We can modify these actions if we specify them appropriately, and if we do this within the constraints of the physiologic and behavioral principles that govern their operation. Obviously, this is a complex issue that raises a number of questions, some of which I have addressed elsewhere (15). In particular, I have argued that the neurally mediated responses of the circulation are conditional in each of three senses: 1) they are reflexes that function adaptively in a behaving organism; 2) the stimuli that elicit these reflexes not only are innately determined but also are acquired through associative conditioning; and 3) the responses not only can be elicited by adequate stimuli, but also can be emitted to obtain environmental consequences.…”

“…Sherrington knew about the functional utility of reflexes and devoted most of his classic book, The Integrative Action of the Nervous System, to documenting the functional significance of reflexes in living animals (16). This is true not only of somatomotor reflexes but also of cardiovascular and other reflexes (15). It is always true!…”

Stability of Visceral Behavior in the Awake Rat During Rest

“…For example, Engel and colleagues have pointed out that the cardiovascular responses of an organism may be considered to be an aspect of its overall behavior (Engel, 1986). More explicitly, they hold that "behavior is an inte-…”

“…This new appreciation has prompted novel ways to understand and classify behavior. For example, Engel and colleagues have pointed out that the cardiovascular responses of an organism may be considered to be an aspect of its overall behavior (Engel, 1986). More explicitly, they hold that "behavior is an inte-This work was supported by grants from the Kentucky Affiliate, American Heart Association and the Kentucky Tobacco and Health Research Institute.…”