The scientist behind the science
Dr Mark Gillman: a life in the science of the body
Dr Mark Alfred Gillman, DSc
The body-science on this site rests on the life’s work of one neuroscientist. Over more than forty years and 200-plus peer-reviewed papers, Dr Mark Alfred Gillman kept returning to a single question: how does the body’s own chemistry govern what we feel? Over more than forty years and 200-plus publications, three of his contributions stand out. Each is given here in his own words, with the reference, and a plain-English note underneath. His Wikipedia profile →
1. A new biological principle: gases that carry thought
In the early 1980s, Dr Gillman and his colleague Dr Fred Lichtigfeld proposed something the scientific world was not ready to hear.
“When we first proposed that a gas could be involved in neurotransmission, the notion was largely ignored by the scientific community. At that time, all neurotransmitters were considered to be solid chemicals dissolved in neural fluid.”
— Dr Mark Gillman, How the Brain Controls All Pleasures (2018)
In plain terms: For a century, scientists assumed the brain’s signals were carried only by solid chemicals. Dr Gillman proposed something radical — that a gas could carry them too.
“we had uncovered a new biological principle, i.e. that gases could act as neurotransmitters … the discovery of a new biological principle is as rare as rocking horse manure, and in the past has resulted in a number of Nobel Prizes.”
— Dr Mark Gillman, How the Brain Controls All Pleasures (2018) — see also Nitrous oxide, nitric oxide and neurotransmission, British Medical Journal 1992;305:1368, and The role of gases in neurotransmission, S Afr J Sci 1991;87:573
In plain terms: He was dismissed — until the chemically-related nitric oxide was confirmed as a neurotransmitter (its discoverers’ molecule was named “molecule of the year” by Science, and the field later drew a Nobel Prize). The principle Dr Gillman had reached first — that gases can act as neurotransmitters — is now established biology. By his account, one of the scientists who later confirmed it wrote to him conceding that his work had come first.
2. A new way through addiction’s withdrawal
Reasoning that the gas acted on the body’s own endorphin system, the pair tested low, non-anaesthetic doses of nitrous oxide on patients in acute alcohol withdrawal at Johannesburg’s Rand Aid Association.
“Over the course of these experiments, we began to realise that the action of oxygen and N2O were so dramatic and rapid that we had seen something new and noteworthy. The reader should know that in order to achieve a similar improvement, patients treated with sedatives required 1-3 full days.”
— Dr Mark Gillman, How the Brain Controls All Pleasures (2018) — first reported in The treatment of alcoholic withdrawal states with oxygen and nitrous oxide, S Afr Med J 1982;61:349–351; later assessed in a Cochrane systematic review (2007)
In plain terms: Standard sedatives took one to three days to settle a withdrawal. A single twenty-minute dose of the gas could do it in minutes — and, unlike the sedatives, carried almost no risk of a second addiction.
“in many thousands of cases treated with the gases over a period of thirty years, not a single case of N2O addiction came to our notice”
— Dr Mark Gillman, How the Brain Controls All Pleasures (2018)
In plain terms: Across three decades of clinical use, his team recorded not one case of addiction to the treatment itself. This is an account of his research — it is not a treatment you should seek out from these pages.
3. Depression, and the pain–pleasure balance
Dr Gillman’s signature theory tied feeling itself to the body’s endorphin chemistry — pain and pleasure as two ends of one balance.
“we originally proposed the pain-pleasure continuum, a continuum with all forms of pain existing on one side of an endorphin physiological equilibrium and all pleasures on the other side.”
— Dr Mark Gillman, How the Brain Controls All Pleasures (2018) — on nitrous oxide and depression, see Effect of nitrous oxide on depressive patients and volunteers (1985) and Analgesic nitrous oxide as an investigative and therapeutic agent in psychiatry, Int J Neurosci 1990;53:231–233
In plain terms: In this picture, depression is the body’s pain–pleasure balance tipped toward the joyless, painful side — an imbalance in the same endorphin system. Decades before recent controlled trials (Nagele and colleagues, 2015) found that nitrous oxide can rapidly ease treatment-resistant depression, Dr Gillman was already investigating it. Again: his research, not advice.
A note on what this is
This page is an account of Dr Gillman’s scientific work, offered to show the depth behind the science on this site. None of it is medical advice — please read our disclaimer. The body’s chemistry is one thing; the contemplative practice on these pages is a separate matter, and is for you.