the heart has a significant influence on the brainsneurological activity and even plays a role in modulating cognitive functions. While extensiveevidence had previously established that sensory-motor integration and cognitive processing ismodified by changes in heart rate (beat-to-beat cardiac accelerations and decelerations), ourresearch has expanded this understanding. We found that macro-scale patterns of the heartsrhythmic activity also significantly affect cognitive performance and intentional behavior wellbeyond the micro-scale effects previously reported. We also demonstrated a significantrelationship between heart rhythm patterns and cognitive performance, in that increased heartrhythm coherence leads to improved cognitive performance.This along with other findings led us to propose that a global level of organization serves tobind and synchronize the body as a whole. In this function we believe that the heart is a keyorgan in orchestrating activity across multiple systems, encompassing both micro and macrolevels of organization. We proposed that information is encoded in the interbeat intervals of thewaveforms of neurological, hormonal, pressure, and electromagnetic activity generated by theheart. Because of the hearts wide-ranging linkage to the bodys major systems, informationencoded in the hearts rhythmic patterns both reflects and influences the ongoing dynamics of thebody as a whole. Furthermore, when the hearts rhythmic activity shifts into coherence,synchronization and harmonious interaction within and among systems is the result. This, in turn,produces optimal states of health, physical activity, and cognitive performance. Thus, the heart isa critical nodal point in the psychophysiological network: it acts as the conductor in the humansymphony, setting the beat that binds and synchronizes the entire system.An important, though little investigated, way in which the heart acts as a global conductor isthrough its electromagnetic interactions. We proposed that the electromagnetic fields producedby the heart form a complex energetic network that connects the electromagnetic fields of therest of the body. In doing so, the hearts energetic field acts as a modulated carrier wave thatencodes and communicates information throughout the entire body, from the systemic to thecellular levels, and even conveys information outside the body between individuals. In theseways it provides a global signal that integrates the order of the system as a whole.INTEGRAL REVIEWDecember 2009Vol. 5, No. 2The concept of an energetic information field is not a new one. Indeed, many prominentscientists have proposed models in which information from all physical, biological andpsychosocial interactions is enfolded as a spectral order outside the space/time world in theenergy waveforms of the quantum vacuum. Holographic principles (Gabor, 1948) form the basisof most of these theories and have been used to describe how information about the organizationof a whole is nonlocalizedenfolded and distributed to all parts and locations via the energywaveforms produced by interactions in the brain, (Pribram, 1971, 1991) social structures,(Bradley, 1987; Bradley & Pribram, 1998) and the universe (Bekenstein, 2003; Nadeau &Kafatos, 1999). We adopted a holographic perspective to describe how energy waveformsgenerated by the hearts electromagnetic field encode and distribute information about allstructures and processes throughout the body from the cellular level to the body as a whole.Moreover, the energy fields produced by the heart and other bodily structures are transmittedexternally. And because these energy fields are in continuous interaction with the