Neuroscience
Why Your Body Is Smarter Than Your Brain
Your body knows things that you do not.
Updated July 24, 2025 Reviewed by Hara Estroff Marano
Key points
- Much of our practical knoweldge is gained unconsciously through implicit learning.
- Some of this learning occurs in the cerebellum and basal ganglia of the brain.
- But mounting evidence suggests that significant unconscious learning occurs in cells of our bodies.
- Such cells include those in the spinal cord, peripheral ganglia, immune system, and even gut organisms.
We are all kitchen physicists.
Where did you learn that you could pick up a breadcrumb on the kitchen counter by pressing the pad of one finger on it, or that licking your finger makes pages of a book easier to turn, or that blowing on soup cools it off?
Most likely, you can’t remember anyone telling you those things, or even the first time you discovered them for yourself. You somehow—well—just know them. Just like you know:
- Wetting a cloth makes the cleanup of spilled sugar or salt easier
- Metal is cooler to the touch than wood indoors but hotter to the touch in the sun
- Opening a door gets easier further away from the hinges.
- Putting your weight into opening a door (say, with your shoulder) is easier than using your hands.
- Sliding heavy cardboard boxes across a wood floor is easier than lifting the box and carrying it.
- Running uphill is easier if you lean forward.
- Covering a dish of food makes it last longer
- Stirring sugar into a drink makes the sugar dissolve faster.
- It’s safer to take shorter steps on ice and to bend your knees to lower your center of gravity.
We’re discussing psychology, not physics, so I put the scientific explanations of these examples of “folk physics” in an addendum. More pertinent to psychology are two questions: 1) Where did you pick up this knowledge of practical physics?, and 2) Why don’t you remember learning it?
Where You Learned What You Didn't Know You Had Learned
I don’t precisely remember being taught to read or do math, but I do know that I learned those things in school somewhere along the line. I have vague memories of teachers writing on blackboards, above which were letters of the alphabet, along with numbers. I remember taking tests for addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, algebra, etc., although not where or when I took these tests. But at least I know, in a general sense, where the knowledge came from.
Not so with folk physics. That practical knowledge seems to have always been with me, although it wasn’t. I picked it up through direct experience or through imitation learning, without noticing that I was learning, in a process called “implicit memory.” [1].
It turns out that, contrary to popular wisdom, we do not have to pay attention to learn. Although focal attention does significantly increase our rate of learning, the examples of folk physics prove that it isn’t strictly necessary.[1-3]
Toddlers are notorious explorers and experimenters who instinctively touch a lot, move a lot, and put a lot of things in their mouths. Thus, many implicit memories are formed well before the brain has finished wiring itself (around 25 years).
Interestingly, more primitive brain structures such as the cerebellum and basal ganglia, which develop early in infancy, are thought to play an important role in the formation of implicit memories, in contrast to the hippocampus and cerebral cortex, which are key to the formation of declarative conscious memories.[2,3]
Which explains why you don’t remember acquiring implicit knowledge: The basal ganglia and cerebellum operate unconsciously—and quickly.
The Need for Speed
Some neuroscientists [2,3] believe that one reason implicit memories heavily engage primitive motor centers such as the cerebellum and basal ganglia is that implicit knowledge—as distinct from declarative knowledge—often needs to be acted upon swiftly, and the motor centers involved in implicit memory can trigger fast, thought-free action.
Consider the cliché line from jungle movies: “It’s quiet here. Too quiet.” Suggesting the absence of sound means danger is close. And danger requires fast action.
True, very few of you venture into dangerous jungles, but most of you would turn quickly to check out a fast-approaching silence behind you, because you’ve learned that, when someone comes up on you from behind, they cast a sound shadow that blocks street noise, conversation, and other ambient sounds. You can sense, from implicit memory, when you’re being followed by sound shadows that either stay with you or grow (deadening sound more effectively). And someone rushing up from behind definitely merits a fast reaction.
And isn’t it nice not to have to take time to think before you clean a kitchen counter, eat soup, or walk on ice?
Storing Memories in the Body
New research suggests that motor centers, such as the basal ganglia and cerebellum, may not be the only places that harbor implicit memories influencing fast action.
Our enteric nervous system (gut) and the nerve network of our heart exhibit experience-modulated changes to their activity akin to learning [10,11,12], and through interoceptive (body awareness) sensory pathways from the gut and heart, relayed through the vagal nerve and other pathways, contribute to unconscious decision-making. [4-5] Neurons in the spinal cord and peripheral nervous system (PNS) outside the gut and heart also exhibit plasticity akin to learning that influences unconscious behaviors.[14-20].
Our immune system also learns from exposure to pathogens: Accumulating evidence shows that, through interoception and direct communication between the immune system and nervous system through cytokines and neurotransmitters, we are unconsciously aware of immune activity. [6,7,8]
Finally, there is evidence that we are unconsciously aware of plasticity in our gut biome (changes to the mix and activity of enteric microorganisms), both through interoception and neurotransmitter-mediated communication from gut organisms to the brain.[15]
Taken together, all the foregoing evidence strongly suggests that only a part of what we call “intuition” lives in our brain, with significant parts of it—literally—residing in our bodies.
But you don’t have to take my word for it: Just like picking up a breadcrumb with your fingertips, you intuitively know all this in your heart, if not your gut.
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References
1 sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/implicit-learning [Implicit learning overview]
2 Reber (1992), The cognitive unconscious: An evolutionary perspective. June 1992 Consciousness and Cognition 1(2):93-133 [Unconscious associations]
3 Nairne et al. (2007), Adaptive memory: Survival processing enhances retention. J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn. 2007 Mar;33(2):263-7 [Squire & Kandel on implicit memory’s link to survival and reproduction]
4 Dantzer, R., O’Connor, J. C., Freund, G. G., Johnson, R. W., & Kelley, K. W. (2008).From inflammation to sickness and depression: when the immune system subjugates the brain. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 9(1), 46–56. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn2297 [Immune activation (e.g., infection) signals the brain via cytokines and the vagus nerve, leading to changes in mood, motivation, and cognition—often without conscious awareness.]
5 Critchley, H. D., & Harrison, N. A. (2013). Visceral influences on brain and behavior. Neuron, 77(4), 624–638. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2013.02.008 [Internal bodily states—including immune activity—are processed through the insula and anterior cingulate cortex, influencing perception and emotion unconsciously.]
6 Harrison, N. A., Brydon, L., Walker, C., Gray, M. A., Steptoe, A., & Critchley, H. D. (2009). Inflammation causes mood changes through alterations in subgenual cingulate activity and mesolimbic connectivity. Biological Psychiatry, 66(5), 407–414.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2009.03.015
7 Eisenberger, N. I., Inagaki, T. K., Mashal, N. M., & Irwin, M. R. (2010). Inflammation and social experience: an inflammatory challenge induces feelings of social disconnection in addition to depressed mood. Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, 24(4), 558–563. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbi.2009.12.009
8 Stephan, K. E., Manjaly, Z. M., Mathys, C. D., et al. (2016). Allostatic Self-efficacy: A Metacognitive Theory of Dyshomeostasis-Induced Fatigue and Depression. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 10, 550.https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2016.00550 [The brain integrates physiological inputs (including immune status) into predictive models that influence emotion and behavior, supporting an unconscious basis for “gut feelings.”]
9 Mayer, E. A., & Tillisch, K. (2011).The brain-gut axis in abdominal pain syndromes. Annual Review of Medicine, 62, 381–396. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-med-012309-103958
10 Armour, J. A. (1991). Potential clinical relevance of the ‘little brain’ on the mammalian heart. Experimental Physiology, 76(5), 615–625. https://doi.org/10.1113/expphysiol.1991.sp003533 [Functional intrinsic cardiac nervous system can process sensory information, make decisions, and modulate output, independent of the brain. The system exhibits plasticity in its reflex responses, a hallmark of primitive learning.]
11 Ardell, J. L., & Armour, J. A. (2016). Neurocardiology: Structure-Based Function. Comprehensive Physiology, 6(4), 1635–1653. https://doi.org/10.1002/cphy.c150038 [Reviews evidence that cardiac neurons change their output behavior in response to chronic changes in afferent input—demonstrating functional reorganization over time, consistent with neural adaptation and memory formation.]
12 Smith, F. M., & Armour, J. A. (1992). Intrathoracic extracardiac neurons in mammals: a possible site of cardiac memory. Cardiovascular Research, 26(1), 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1093/cvr/26.1.1 [Memory-like properties might exist in peripheral autonomic ganglia, particularly cardiac neurons that exhibit lasting alterations in behavior after conditioning.]
13 Gershon, M. D. (1998). The Second Brain: A Groundbreaking New Understanding of Nervous Disorders of the Stomach and Intestine. HarperCollins. [ENS’s independent reflex circuits, long-term modulation, and ability to integrate stimuli and adapt behavior, including evidence of synaptic plasticity in the gut.]
14 Wood, J. D. (2006). Enteric nervous system: reflexes, pattern generators and motility. Current Opinion in Gastroenterology, 22(2), 102–110. https://doi.org/10.1097/01.mog.0000203864.37810.2b [Describes reflex learning in the ENS, with pattern-generating circuits that can be modified by experience—closely analogous to spinal cord learning.]
15 Neunlist, M., Van Landeghem, L., Mahé, M. M., Derkinderen, P. (2013). The digestive neuronal-glial-epithelial unit: a new actor in gut health and disease. Nature Reviews Gastroenterology & Hepatology, 10(2), 90–100. [Describes how gut-immune signals influence emotional and threat-related processing in the brain, often resulting in visceral “feelings” without conscious reasoning.]
16 Patterson, M. M. (1976). Spinal cord long-term memory: learned flexion reflexes in the rat. Science, 194(4261), 891–894.https://doi.org/10.1126/science.982045 [Spinalized rats (with brains disconnected) can still learn to modify their withdrawal reflex to painful stimuli, showing long-term changes in spinal reflex circuits—i.e., a form of instrumental learning independent of the brain.]
17 Grau, J. W., et al. (2006). Learning in the spinal cord: lessons for the rehabilitation of spinal cord injury. The Neuroscientist, 12(5), 477–488. https://doi.org/10.1177/1073858406290146 [Reviews extensive evidence that the spinal cord can learn, adapt, and store memory traces, even after spinal transection. Also discusses metaplasticity—the modulation of future learning by past experience.]
18 Thompson, A. K., Pomerantz, F. R., & Wolpaw, J. R. (2013). Operant conditioning of a spinal reflex can improve locomotion after spinal cord injury in humans. Journal of Neuroscience, 33(6), 2365–2375. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3968-12.2013 [Human clinical study showing that operant conditioning of spinal reflexes improves locomotion after injury—implying experience-dependent plasticity in spinal circuits.]
19 Bergquist, A. J., Clair, J. M., & Collins, D. F. (2011). Motor unit recruitment when neuromuscular electrical stimulation is applied over a nerve trunk in human subjects. Journal of Applied Physiology, 110(6), 1501–1510. https://doi.org/10.1152/japplphysiol.01202.2010 [Peripheral nerve stimulation can induce plastic changes in recruitment patterns, suggesting adaptive responses in peripheral motor circuits.]
20 Woolf, C. J., & Salter, M. W. (2000). Neuronal plasticity: increasing the gain in pain. Science, 288(5472), 1765–1769. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.288.5472.1765 [Shows that nociceptors in the PNS can exhibit long-term sensitization—a form of memory in which prior painful input enhances future responses. This plasticity underlies phenomena like hyperalgesia and chronic pain.]
21 Coderre, T. J., & Melzack, R. (1992). Central neural mediators of secondary hyperalgesia following heat injury in rats: neuropeptides and excitatory amino acids. Neuroscience Letters, 135(1), 93–96. https://doi.org/10.1016/0304-3940(92)90434-5 [In peripheral and spinal systems, excitatory signaling leads to lasting changes in pain sensitivity—indicating memory encoding in nociceptive pathways.]
