Dr. Diego Bohórquez

Amazing.

Yeah, and that was an eye-opener.

I still remember it was somewhere, I think it was like June 27, 2012, when I saw that experiment because it opened my eyes to so many different things.

One, it was that these cells are not static.

Because since we have been seeing them for decades, just in slices or fixed tissue, we have lost the notion that this thing is constantly moving, right?

The cells are actually moving.

Yeah, they have little cilia, little hair, or microvilli that is literally like little hair that is exposed to the lumen.

That's correct.

Yeah.

So that was the first experiment, like showing in addition, right?

The next experiment was, well, does it happen in the mouse?

And then through a series of, I have a friend neuroscientist that she calls this rabies gymnastics because you have to put in some genes and make things work.

Then we demonstrated that these cells, that the virus will be capable of infecting these cells specifically, instead of infecting the other epithelial cells, it will infect these new epithelial cells because rabies likes neurons.

And then it will jump from that cell into a nerve fiber.

And these rabies can only jump one connection, right?

And what was surprising is that the fluorescence from the rabies will show up in the brainstem and in the bodies of the cells that are in the nodus ganglia, which is this cluster where the cell bodies of the neurons of the vagus nerve are located right underneath the neck.

meaning that there was just one stop between the surface of the intestine and the brainstem.

The two cells were connecting that space.

So obviously the information, that was the anatomical basis for the information to travel very rapidly up into the brain.

and rapidly in the subconscious, right?