The link between movement and the brain

“We have a brain for one reason and one reason only, and that’s to produce complex and adaptable movements.”

dan wolpert, neuroscientist

The above quote is taken from a TED talk by neuroscientist Dan Wolpert, where he takes on the question, “Why brains evolved in the first place?”

A self-described “movement chauvinist,” Wolpert firmly believes that movement is the most important function of the brain.  He says:

“Now you may reason that we have one to perceive the world or to think, and that’s completely wrong. If you think about this question for any length of time, it’s blindingly obvious why we have a brain. We have a brain for one reason and one reason only, and that’s to produce adaptable and complex movements. 

There is no other reason to have a brain. Think about it. Movement is the only way you have of affecting the world around you. 

Now that’s not quite true. There’s one other way, and that’s through sweating. But apart from that, everything else goes through contractions of muscles.

So think about communication — speech, gestures, writing, and sign language — they’re all mediated through contractions of your muscles. 

So it’s really important to remember that sensory, memory and cognitive processes are all important, but they’re only important to either drive or suppress future movements. There can be no evolutionary advantage to laying down memories of childhood or perceiving the color of a rose if it doesn’t affect the way you’re going to move later in life.” (Highlights mine).

In these few sentences, Wolpert lays down the “blindingly obvious” (Dr. Feldenkrais used the words “The Elusive Obvious”) conclusion; that brains evolved for movement and not for cognitive functions such as thinking, memory, or even for communication.

In support of his argument, Wolpert cites the example of the humble sea squirt. A marine creature which spends the first half of its life floating in the ocean, the sea squirt finally settles itself on a rock, where it stays without moving, for the rest of its life.

The first thing it does upon settling itself in its new (and permanent) home, is to digest its own, albeit primitive, nervous system!

Wolpert even suggests that memory and perception develop to aid movement, to move towards food or a potential mate, and away from a predator.

Memory and perception are vital components of consciousness, and Wolpert just made the case that these may have evolved to facilitate movement. So movement has, in the minimum, an evolutionary relationship with memory, perception and hence, consciousness. We will revisit this at the end of this article in more detail.

In Wolpert’s way of thinking, it makes sense to study different senses and functions with respect to the effect they have on movement. For example, studying vision in isolation, without considering why vision developed in the first place, is a mistake.

You have to study vision in the context of how it is going to affect movement. That approach will lead to a more nuanced understanding of how the visual system works. 

To illustrate the above point, let’s take an example from Sandra and Matthew Blakeslee’s excellent book, “The Body Has A Mind Of Its Own”.  They write:

“If you were to carry around a young mammal, such as a kitten, during its critical early months of brain development, allowing it to see everything in its environment, but never permitting it to move on its own, the unlucky creature would turn out effectively blind for life.”

While the eyes and the optic nerves are perfectly normal, its higher visual system would be completely useless. For vision to develop normally, being born with eyes and growing up seeing things is not enough. Another ingredient is required: movement or “the ability to use one’s body freely to explore the world, even if it’s a small corner of it.”

We come back for now to Wolpert, who goes on to build the case that movement poses a very difficult problem for the nervous system.

In comparison, the mental aspect of the game of chess, which we consider as very complex, is relatively a much easier problem to solve. Winning at chess involves making sound choices from a limited number of potential moves. Throw enough computing power at it, and you can find the right moves.

In contrast, even a simple movement, for example, to raise a glass to one’s lips, presents the brain with almost an infinite number of possibilities. Hundreds of muscles need to contract in sequence in order to move hundreds of bones through any number of different trajectories in space.

It is for this reason that in 1997, a supercomputer defeated Gary Kasparov, the reigning grandmaster in a game of chess, but more than 2 decades later, we are yet to build a robot which can move with anything close to the ease of a 5 year old!!

While I am very excited as a Feldenkrais practitioner about what Wolpert has to say about the link between movement and the nervous system, I think he does not go far enough in the short time he had available.

I will attempt to build upon his line of thinking in the second half of this article.

According to the TED website, Wolpert’s talk is dated in the year 2011. I am sure that since then, there have been further, exciting, discoveries made in the field of neuroscience. For now, however, let’s move back in time, to the middle of the 20^th century, when a remarkable man named Moshe Feldenkrais came to the same conclusion almost half a century earlier.

That brains evolved for movement.

And he went a step further.

Dr. Feldenkrais proposed that not only is the nervous system mainly preoccupied with movement, but also that improving movement is the best means of improving the condition of the nervous system. 

In his book, “Awareness Through Movement”, which was first published in 1972, Dr. Feldenkrais writes that four components make up our behaviors in the waking state (as opposed to the state of being asleep): Thinking, Feeling, Sensing and Movement.

Further, he believed in the unity of the four components. That sensations, feelings, thoughts and movements combine together to produce our experience of being in the waking state:

“It is impossible for instance, for you to recall an event, person or landscape without using at least one of the senses – sight, hearing, or taste – to recapture the memory together with your self-image at the time such as your position, your age, appearance, action, or pleasant or unpleasant feelings.”

The four components interact with and influence one other, and hence the whole person. Dr. Feldenkrais believed that, “In reality there is no practical way of correcting an individual except by gradual improvement, alternating between the whole and its parts.”

Therefore, any one or more of these four components, can be used to bring about change in an individual in the waking state. In talk therapy for instance, the therapist and the patient talk through thoughts and feelings to improve the patient’s state of mind, behavior and emotional well-being.

Dr. Feldenkrais, on the other hand, chose movement as the medium to bring about improvement in the other three components of the waking state, and his students as a whole. 

The primary reason that he chose movement as the vehicle for change in the nervous system, is the same as Wolpert’s reasoning: since brains developed for movement, and the nervous system is occupied mainly with movement, it follows naturally that movement is the key to improving the nervous system.

There are several other reasons that support this decision.

Movement is a language the brain understands very well:  For all the richness of language, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to communicate thoughts and feeling accurately using words. Misunderstandings, biases and feelings get in the way.

Movement bypasses the need for language. Many people may have a different understanding of a certain word, or concept but each one of us can instantly distinguish a friendly touch from an unfriendly one.

People often struggle to accurately identify the emotion they are feeling but on the other hand, it is much easier for them to identify and distinguish the quality of their movement.

Finally, our ability to sense very fine movements allows for nuanced communication with the nervous system.

Movement is central to life: As Wolpert said, movement is the only way (except for sweating) that we have of affecting the world around us. Seeing, hearing, and even breathing, which is crucial for life, require movement.

Seniors who lose their ability to move on their own, lose confidence and often fall into depression.

Movement is the basis for awareness and reflects the state of the nervous system: Earlier in the article, we saw Wolpert suggest that movement is the basis for consciousness and awareness.

Dr. Feldenkrais believed that we do not become aware of what is happening in our nervous system until it is expressed through patterns of muscular contractions such as changes in breathing, heart rate and facial expressions.

These patterns are known to us as “fear” or “anxiety”, or “anger” and are expressed through our posture, facial expression and tone of voice.

Sometimes, we may be aware that something new is happening inside us but we are unable to define it. In this case, a new pattern is emerging and it may have to repeat itself several times before we learn to identify it.

Movement is the hinge of habit: What we call muscular movement, is a result of a series of impulses from the nervous system which activate muscles in specific patterns.

Each pattern has a certain set of thoughts, feelings and sensations associated with it, which combine with movement to form an indivisible whole, a certain behavior.

Habits are learned behaviors, a repeated pattern of impulses from the nervous system in response to a certain stimulus. Take posture, for instance.

Posture can be looked upon as a habit, a certain pattern of thoughts, emotions, sensations and muscular organization that takes shape in response to the environment. This pattern is often repeated and hence solidifies over time.

Trying to improve posture without making changes in the condition of the nervous system is a fool’s errand. Improvements in posture will only appear once the corresponding improvements have been made in the brain and the nervous system.

That is why it is so hard to correct with the usual admonitions to “stand straight!”

On the other hand, if we can somehow succeed in bringing about a change in the nervous system, then it becomes much easier to make changes in the muscular patterns and hence in the habitual way of carrying ourselves, along with our habitual way of thinking, sensing and feeling.

The study of how movement impacts the functioning of the nervous system is still in its infancy. There is enough anecdotal information, however, which suggests a strong connection between the two.

For example, impairment of the vestibular system (which helps with balance), leads not only to a loss of balance, but also negatively affects the ability to multi-task, to process language, or even to remember things.

Conversely, movements which improve balance, have also been shown to improve attention and focus in children as well as in adults.

Anyone who has done an “Awareness Through Movement” lesson, or even gone for a run, or a walk, will attest to the clarity of mind that comes as a result.

Dr. Feldenkrais, who was equally interested in achieving results as well as understanding, used this relationship between movement and the nervous system, to bring about profound and lasting change in his students.

Click here to watch Dan Wolpert’s TED talk. The talk is short, under 20 minutes, highly entertaining as well as informative. I would encourage you to watch it.