A Study of the Relation Between Mental Activity and the Circulation of the Blood: Thesis (Classic Reprint)

Explore how the mind's work affects body signals .

This study traces how mental activity shifts blood flow and heart rate, using real experiments and precise tracings.

This edition presents the apparatus, methods, and results of Bonser’s investigation into how attention, emotion, and intellectual effort relate to peripheral circulation. It details continuous recordings of pulse and vasomotor changes, notes about fatigue, and comparisons with prior findings, all framed around the question of how mental processes influence the body's blood supply.

• What the researchers measured: heart rate, vasomotor changes, and blood flow during emotional and intellectual tasks.
• How the experiments were conducted: continuous recordings with kymographs, plethysmographs, and other instruments.
• How fatigue alters circulatory responses during mental work.
• Connections drawn between mental activity and brain blood supply, including discussions of Traube-Hering rhythms.

Ideal for readers of historical physiology and readers curious about how mental effort touches physical signals in the body.