Pituitary gland - Functions

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Pituitary gland - Functions
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Pituitary gland, Pituitary gland - External link, Pituitary gland - Functions, Growth hormone deficiency, Hypopituitarism, Acromegaly, Pickardt syndrome, Pituitary adenoma, Sheehan syndrome

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Pituitary gland - Functions: Encyclopedia - Pituitary gland

The pituitary gland, or hypophysis, is an endocrine gland about the size of a pea that sits in the small, bony cavity (sella turcica) at the base of the brain. Its posterior lobe is connected to a part of the brain called the hypothalamus via the infundibulum (or stalk), giving rise to the tuberoinfundibular pathway. The posterior lobe is thus derived from neural ectoderm while the anterior lobe is derived from oral ectoderm. The anterior pituitary lobe receives releasing hormones from the hypothalamus via a portal vein system. ...

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Pituitary gland - Functions

Pituitary gland - External link

Pituitary gland - Functions: Encyclopedia II - Gigantism - Pituitary gigantism Pituitary gigantism due to growth hormone excess is the single condition that accounts for nearly all cases of pathologic extreme height. The excess growth hormone usually results from oversecretion by a group of somatotrope cells of the anterior pituitary gland (termed a "somatotrope adenoma"). These cells do not respond to normal controls of growth or function. They grow very slowly, so that for many years the only effects of such an ade ...

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Hypothalamus - Hypothalamic nuclei

Hypothalamus - Projections

Hypothalamus - Sexual dimorphism

Pituitary gland - Functions: Encyclopedia II - Growth hormone - Secretion of GH

GH is secreted into the blood by the somatotrope cells of the anterior pituitary gland, in larger amounts than any other pituitary hormone. The transcription factor PIT-1 stimulates both the development of these cells and their production of GH. Failure of development of these cells, as well as destruction of the anterior pituitary gland, results in GH deficiency. Peptides released by neurosecretory nuclei of the hypothalamus into the portal venous blood surrounding the pituitary are the major controllers of GH secretion by the ...

Human height, Human height - Changes in human height, Human height - Determinants of growth and height, Human height - Process of growth, Human height - Height abnormalities, Human height - Role of an individual's height, Human height - The Role of Height in Sports, Human height - Average adult height around the world

Pituitary gland - Functions: Spiritual - Theosophy Dictionary on Brain-mind

Brain-mind Used by theosophists for the astral mind of the personal ego, the pale and too often distorted reflection of the intellection of the reincarnating ego. It is, in fact, the representative in the physical world of kama-manas, mind conditioned by materiality.

The lower mind or psycho-nervous effluvia of the brain acts through the nervous ganglia in the kamic centers, such as the liver, stomach, and spleen, though the central ganglia of this nervous system are situated in the base of the skull. The brain, and with it the heart, however, are likewise the organs of spiritual and intellectual powers far higher than those represented by the merely human personality working through the brain-mind; hence the higher forms of thought, supersensuous, superconscious, correlate with the cerebral and cardiac centers.

The body in general and the brain in particular are compact of finer and grosser elements, the former responsive only to the breath of divine wisdom, out of reach of the winds from the passion-laden lower mind, whose function is to act on and arouse the grosser elements of the nervous system.

The brain, therefore, is a kind of reflector of thought-currents and emotional tides which arise in the kamic centers of the inner self, and are distributed through the nervous ganglia in the skull to the physical kamic reflection centers in the trunk. Thus we scarcely use at all the brain itself in the true sense, or at any rate only in its lowest aspects or functions; and it is only in rare moments that the brain tissues are suffused with the glory emanating directly from the higher nature and working through the pineal and pituitary glands in the skull and through the secret center in the heart.

Pituitary gland - Functions: Spiritual - Theosophy Dictionary on Will

Will The ensouling creative essence of abstract, eternal motion throughout the kosmos. As an eternal principle it is neither spirit nor substance but everlasting ideation. In its abstract sense, it is a hierarchy of intelligent forces emanating from the aggregate of the hosts of beings, visible and invisible, which are nature itself.

The so-called laws of nature are the action and interaction of the combined consciousnesses and wills which pervade the kosmos. The will pours forth in floods of light and life from the primal Logos. These floods, following the pathways of universal circulation, come to us from the central heart of the solar system -- insofar as our solar universe is concerned. They thus descend, plane by plane and cycle by cycle, into the depths of matter, from which finally they arise again towards their primal source.

In this progressive descent and ascent, will is made to manifest in keeping with each plane or state of consciousness which it enters. There is, therefore, the one fundamental kosmic will-ideation, breaking into innumerable streams of willing entities during periods of manifestation, and thus it operates in myriad ways, in every round of the endless ladder of life.

Divine or universal thought and will come into manifestation through the collective hosts of spiritual beings, the dhyani-chohans, who are the vehicles through which the unmanifested appears. "They are the Intelligent Forces that give to and enact in Nature her 'laws,' while themselves acting according to laws imposed upon them in a similar manner by still higher Powers; but they are not 'the personifications' of the powers of Nature, as erroneously thought" (SD 1:38). The natural law which preserves the balanced motion of planetary rotation was explained by Herschel's saying "that there is a will needed to impart a circular motion and another will to restrain it" (SD 1:503).

In the composite human being -- the microcosm -- there are the divine, spiritual, intellectual, emotional, animal, astral, and even physical wills. The old maxim "behind will stands desire" accounts for the paradoxical influence of this colorless force which is used to energize both good and evil motives. Thus, as it operates through the intermediate human nature, the individual consciously and unconsciously gives it a right or wrong direction, according to his use of free will in choosing his course of conduct. The divine will is expressed in the sublime, impersonal desires of lofty celestial deities; while at the opposite pole, selfish, sensual, animal desires too often direct the action of the human will. The origin of good and evil lies respectively in the harmony and the conflict of wills in the kosmos.

The special physical organ of the human will is the pituitary gland. The brain and body show the different action of the conscious, positive, volitional will and of the negative, automatic, vegetative will. The latter energizes the mysteries of organic functions carried on by various conscious or semiconscious elemental entities who themselves act instinctively under the intelligent, harmonious laws of nature for the body's welfare.

Will power is a mighty, colorless force or energy which can be set in motion by one who has the power and knowledge to do so. In India, in combination with abstract desire, it is mentioned as one of six primary powers (ichchhasakti) by which the adept accomplishes many of his wonders. "The ancients held that any idea will manifest itself externally, if one's attention (and Will) is deeply concentrated upon it; similarly, an intense volition will be followed by the desired result . . . For creation is but the result of will acting on phenomenal matter, the calling forth out of the primordial divine Light and eternal Life "(SD 2:173). The occult power of will explains many scientific problems of animate and inanimate matter. In human beings, it may consciously and unconsciously act upon other human wills and upon that of beasts; likewise, it may act upon physical and astral substance to produce various phenomena such as levitation, fire-walking, birthmarks, etc. "Paracelsus teaches that 'determined will is the beginning of all magical operations. It is because men do not perfectly imagine and believe the result, that the (occult) arts are so uncertain, while they might be perfectly certain' " (TG 370).

Pituitary gland - Functions: Spiritual - Theosophy Dictionary on Physical Organs

Physical Organs Natural history reveals that the organs of the body acquire a greater individual importance, and in some cases occupy a larger proportion of the organism, as we ascend from the lower to the higher animal forms. G. de Purucker points out that "Every one of the organs of the human physical body, both collectively and distributively, is the organic representative in man's physical sheath or body of one part or portion of his complex inner and invisible constitution. . . . every one of the monadic centers in man's being . . . has its own corresponding organ in the physical body, each such organ functioning in the body as much as it can according to the characteristic or type-activity of its inner and invisible cause. Thus the heart, the brain, the liver, the spleen, etc., is, each one, the expression on the physical plane and in the human physical body of a corresponding consciousness-center in the invisible constitution of the sevenfold man" (ET 961-2n).

There are manasic as well as kamic organs. The brain and heart are "the organs of a power higher than the Personality" (BCW 12:367; or St in Oc 89). The liver is called the kamic organ; the spleen is the vehicle of the linga-sarira. Of the rhythmic tides of vital air in the chest, it is said: "The primeval current of the life-wave is then the same which assumes in man the form of the inspiratory and expiratory motion of the lungs, and this is the source of the evolution and involution of the universe" (q from Nature's Finer Forces Rama Prasad, BCW 12:356 or Studies in Occultism 76). The uterus, within which a new manifestation of life appears, corresponds physically to the universal matrix -- cosmic space -- the fertilized cell being the point in the circle where differentiation begins. The eyes, from one standpoint at least, are the most occult of our senses. The fibers of the large optic nerves are interrelated with special organs of the senses and sensations -- optic thalami, pineal and pituitary glands, etc. -- which are grouped around the center of the brain.

Further, "every human organ and each cell in the latter has a key-board of its own, like that of a piano, only that it registers and emits sensations instead of sounds. Every key contains the potentiality of good or bad, of producing harmony or disharmony" according as the impulse comes from the higher or lower nature (BCW 12:368-9 or St in Oc 91). Memory has no special organ of its own in the brain, but has seats in every organ of the body. The whole body is a vast sounding board in which each cell bears a long record of impressions connected with its parent organ, and also it has a memory and consciousness of its own kind. These impressions are, according to the nature of the organ, physical, psychic, mental, or again mixed, as they relate to this or another plane, there being states of instinctual, mental, and purely abstract or spiritual consciousness. The physiological functions and reciprocal workings of cells and organs are in the body automatically directed by a "universally diffused mind" throughout that body, which is beyond all material analysis. Because of this intelligence operating throughout the organism, physiology is destined someday "to become the hand-maiden of Occult truths" (BCW 12:139; or Studies in Occultism 105).

On a larger scale, each organ has its own rhythm or vibratory rate of response to cosmic eternal motion. The response is animated by a "vital principle without which no molecular combinations could ever have resulted in a living organism, least of all in the so-called 'inorganic' matter of our plane of consciousness" (SD 1:603). The breaking of the normal rhythm of one organ disturbs that of all the rest, which accounts for the many reflex symptoms that often appear.

The general principles of occult physiology underlie and coordinate the numerous details of chemical, microscopic, and biological research. The human organism illustrates the modern scientific view of the electronic nature of matter. In man, the positive and negative phases of the one Life unite to manifest in functional currents of vitality; all of which has a significant bearing on the prevailing medical recourse to organotherapy, the end results of which are not recognized, as such, since they operate on inner lines of force. Each animal body -- human or beast -- is a complex organism whose various parts are vibrating in consonance with the synthetic character of its own evolutionary status of vital matter and conscious force -- its selfhood. Hence, the injection of the physiologic essence of any one creature's organs into the life-currents of another, aiming to give a certain impetus to functional reaction, inevitably adds a subtly disturbing foreign element. The same physical matter composes all animal bodies, so that the human and beast life-atoms are interchangeable, but such interchange is governed or regulated by extremely occult causal relations which raise their action outside or above the plane of human interference. Organotherapy, as at present understood and practiced, is a divergence from nature's normal processes, having no analog in nature which, in turn, provides resources of wholesome remedial matter. These artificial mixtures of both physical and superphysical forces, involve vital issues beyond the ken of research laboratories. The end results of unbalanced forces might be sought among the increase in cases of malignant, degenerative, and mental and nervous disorders, with their unequilibrated operation of functioning vitality and of consciousness.

Pi The mathematical symbol for the incommensurable ratio of the circumference of a circle to the length of its diameter, and for corresponding ratios in plane and solid geometry. Its incommensurability is a particular instance of the impossibility of expressing geometrical magnitudes exactly in number. Bearing in mind that there is a geometrical key to interpretation of cosmic law and structure, and that the facts of geometry cannot possibly be arbitrary or meaningless but must be faithful representations of general laws; then we shall understand that the ratio {pi sym}, involving such radial and important elements as the straight line and the circle, must be of paramount importance. The figures, either for approximate decimal evaluations or approximate fractional ratios, play an important part in the symbology of the ancient mystery-language. These figures and the numbers which they make are found in the numerical values of letters and words in the Hebrew and Greek alphabets. The problem of squaring the circle by a purely geometrical construction does not involve the use of {pi sym} at all.