When the heart’s material weakens and turns into water

A dog called Venom, and the science of crying.

There are far more mysteries about the workings of the human body that you may expect. Menopause, obviously (what purpose does it serve? dunno), why we sleep (dunno), how anaesthesia works (and, dunno). The “common cold,” actually 200 viruses that are only common because they are so good at infecting us. I’m thinking about the common cold because I currently have one and have felt woeful for three days. I wonder at people who say, “oh, it’s just a cold.” Like saying, “oh, that’s just a lion.”

And we don’t really know why we cry. I’ve had reason to think about this a lot recently. It’s weird, that an activity that seems so desperate, that seems like you can’t control it, that is violent in its intensity — you can’t stop your body doing it even if your brain tells you to, and my god, what does it do to your face muscles— should in the end feel somewhat peaceful. There is science for that.

But not enough.

The production of emotional tears appears to be uniquely present in Homo Sapiens. Despite the ubiquity of this human behavior, research is only just beginning to uncover the neurobiological underpinnings of human emotional crying. In this paper, we review the current state of the literature investigating the neurobiological aspects of this uniquely human behavior, including neuroanatomical, neurochemical, and psychophysiological findings. To set the context for this review, we first provide a brief overview of the evolutionary background and functions of tearful crying. Despite an accumulating understanding of the neurobiology of human emotional crying, the primary sources of information are currently from animal studies and observations in neurological patients suffering from pathological crying. Currently, most of the research on the neurobiology of crying in humans has focused on autonomic physiological processes underlying tearful crying, which may yield essential clues regarding the neural substrates of the production of crying behavior and its effects on the crier. Further challenges in elucidating the neurobiology of crying involve the complexity of crying behavior, which includes vocalizations, tear production, the involvement of facial musculature, subjective emotional experience, emotion regulatory behaviors, and social behaviors. Future research is needed to comprehensively characterize the neurobiology of this intriguing and complex human behavior.

Well, quite.

We are the only species to cry because of emotion, but that is not true when we are younger. Babies and toddlers cry when they are separated from their mothers; so do animal young.

More science:

Gračanin and colleagues [1] postulate that the connection between tears and vocal crying might have developed when, in human newborns, the strong contractions of the orbicularis oculi muscle during the production of distress vocalizations stimulated the sensitive corneal sensory nerves that then trigger the release of tears by the lacrimal gland (which is comparable with the production of non-emotional tears during yawning). This coupling at least suggests that humans at some point in their evolution were confronted with unique challenges for which the shedding of tears proved to be advantageous.

So if I’m sitting on my couch sobbing and I don’t know why: how is the shedding of tears advantageous?

Because it gets God on my side?

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. – Psalm 34:18

But I do not believe in imaginary friends so that is no use to me. For many centuries, it was believed that crying was only useful to lubricate the eyes. This excellent piece from Time by Mandy Oaklander, introduced me to the fact that there is a world expert on crying. Of course there is.

“Scientists are not interested in the butterflies in our stomach, but in love,” writes Ad Vingerhoets, a professor at Tilburg University in the Netherlands and the world’s foremost expert on crying, in his 2013 book, Why Only Humans Weep.

For centuries, people thought tears originated in the heart; the Old Testament describes tears as the by-product of when the heart’s material weakens and turns into water, says Vingerhoets. Later, in Hippocrates’ time, it was thought that the mind was the trigger for tears. A prevailing theory in the 1600s held that emotions—especially love—heated the heart, which generated water vapor in order to cool itself down. The heart vapor would then rise to the head, condense near the eyes and escape as tears.

The lacrimal gland was discovered in 1662. But tears were still thought to be some kind of wet wipe for the eyes. Now, there are other theories. One is that tears are a signal. You can’t see a person’s stomach tying in knots, but you can see that they are crying. It serves a social purpose: it indicates that a person may need help.

Tears also show others that we’re vulnerable, and vulnerability is critical to human connection. “The same neuronal areas of the brain are activated by seeing someone emotionally aroused as being emotionally aroused oneself,” says Trimble, a professor emeritus at University College London. “There must have been some point in time, evolutionarily, when the tear became something that automatically set off empathy and compassion in another. Actually being able to cry emotionally, and being able to respond to that, is a very important part of being human.”

But animals frequently need help: why don’t they cry?

Another theory: that tears are a catharsis and stimulate chemicals that make you feel better. I think that is definitely true. When people who watched a “tearjerker” film were measured 90 minutes later, the ones who had cried were in a better mood. I wonder at that: it must be self-reported. And again, animals need a break now and then so why don’t they start greetin’?* But hey, science.

*greetin’ is one of my favourite Scottish words, along with havering and dreich. Here are some other words for crying:

Yoo-hoo?

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Animal hero of the week : Venom

Who the hell calls a dog Venom? The police, of course. Venom is a four-year old Belgian Malinois who was rejected as a police dog as she was too friendly. “While she excelled in all other aspects, running at criminals for a cuddle is not the expectation of a police dog,” writes Crufts, because Venom — now thankfully renamed Vesper, meaning “evening star” in Latin — is one of four finalists for the Kennel Club Crufts Hero Awards.

In 2020, when Venom was 18 months old, she was trialled by Niamh Darcy of the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service to be a search and rescue dog. She passed the trial, Venom became Vesper, and search and rescue’s gain was the police force’s loss. Vesper and Niamh are now qualified to search for survivors of structural collapse. Part of Vesper’s training was “paw placement,” which means she minimises risk to herself when she is searching amongst rubble. She also wears booties. When she finds a scent, she barks and the humans step in. Her uniform consists of torches and whistles so she can be found in dark buildings.

Vesper has been part of a team that rescued eight people, though this Times piece (paywall) doesn’t say where. She worked after the Morocco earthquake, though no-one was found alive and 2122 people were reported dead (probably more). If she scents someone, she gets a toy as a reward and is trained to ignore food while she’s working.

“It’s a game for these canines,” Darcy said. “It’s the interaction and joy of playing with a ball. They don’t realise that we’re searching in life-and-death situations. When she barks, she is not saying: ‘There’s a rescue, here.’ She’s saying: ‘Where’s my ball?’”

Here’s a whole film about Vesper. Dogs. We don’t deserve them.