Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have discovered a link between the brain areas that control movement and those involved in thinking, planning and involuntary bodily functions like blood pressure and heartbeat.

This connection, called the Somato-Cognitive Action Network (SCAN), suggests a literal connection between body and mind in the brain’s structure. The findings involve brain imaging techniques and map the motor regions of the brain, showing how areas connected to movement are also connected to thinking and planning, and in control of basic bodily functions.

The study provides evidence to the age-old idea that body and mind are inextricably intertwined. Finally we got some proof of what we kind of knew about it for centuries yet didn’t know how it works on physical level.