Does Fear Define YOUR Comfort Zone?

In studies of the brain’s neurology, fMRIs show that when faced with uncertainty our brains decrease the blood flow to the reward center while increasing blood flow to our emotional circuitry — the limbic brain, priming us for fight-or-flight response.  Conversely, in studies of those with lesions in their orbito prefrontal cortex who couldn’t feel […]

An Adolescent Approach to the World

The prefrontal cortex is involved with most of our higher order thought functions like patience, goal setting, motivation, empathy, problem solving and much more.  The amygdala is involved in more reactive and quicker responses like fight-or-flight, emotional arousal, and survival needs.  Studies done at Harvard on teens versus adults asked individuals to label emotional facial […]

Liberals vs. Conservatives: Dueling Brains

The more we exercise an area of our brain, the more neural pathways we grow which increases the thickness of the gray matter.  It’s almost like building muscles;  the more you use a muscle the more it becomes the one that you lean on often.  In recent studies done at the University College of London, […]

False Demons

Our amygdala is masterful at creating imagery that imbued with vivid emotional charge.  In fact, it’s expert in the ones relating to fear and survival.  Our hippocampus likes to store these charged stories and reference them easily when a current situation only vaguely resembles a previous threatening one.  We trigger often at the memory of […]