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Here we have converging evidence that these brain regions are important for trust; and if we can understand how these differences relate to specific social processes, then we may be able to develop more targeted treatment techniques for people who have deficits in social cognition

The volume of this area of the brain, which codes for emotional saliency, was greater in those that were both most trusting and least trusting of others. If something is emotionally important to us, the amygdala helps us code and remember it."

The amygdala, the fight or flight part of the brain which is important for anxiety, fear and stress in general. That area got smaller in the group that went through the mindfulness-based stress reduction program.

Studies by other scientists have shown that meditation can help enhance attention and emotion regulation skills. But most were not neuroimaging studies. So now we’re hoping to bring that behavioral and neuroimaging science together.

Studies carried out with college students have found that brief episodes are common in young people, with a prevalence ranging from 30 to 70 percent. It can happen when you’re jet-lagged, hungover, or stressed. But for roughly 1 to 2 percent of the population, it becomes persistent, and distressing

Research suggests that areas of the brain that are key to emotional and physical sensations, such as the amygdala and the insula, appear to be less responsive in chronic depersonalization sufferers. You might become less empathetic; your pain threshold might increase. These numbing effects mean that it’s commonly conceived as a defense mechanism; Hunter calls it a “psychological trip switch” which can be triggered in times of stress.

Have you ever played that game when you repeat a word over and over again until it loses all meaning? It’s called semantic satiation. Like words, can a sense of self be broken down into arbitrary, socially-constructed components?

That question may be why the phenomenon has attracted a lot of interest from philosophers. In a sense, the experience presupposes certain notions of how the self is meant to feel. We think of a self as an essential thing—a soul or an ego that everyone has and is aware of—but scientists and philosophers have been telling us for a while now that the self isn’t quite as it seems

there is no center in the brain where the self is generated. “What we experience is a powerful depiction generated by our brains for our benefit,” he writes. Brains make sense of data that would otherwise be overwhelming. “Experiences are fragmented episodes unless they are woven together in a meaningful narrative,” he writes, with the self being the story that “pulls it all together.”

“The unity [of self that] we experience, which allows us legitimately to talk of ‘I,’ is a result of the Ego Trick—the remarkable way in which a complicated bundle of mental events, made possible by the brain, creates a singular self, without there being a singular thing underlying it,”

depersonalization is both a burden, a horrible burden—but it’s in some strange way a blessing, to reach some depths, some meaning which somehow comes only in the broken mirror,” Bezzubova says. “It’s a Dostoyevsky style illumination—where clarity cannot be distinguished from pain.”

for her, the experience is pleasant. “It’s helped me in my life,” she says. Over the past few years, she has learned to interpret her experiences in a Buddhist context, and she describes depersonalization as a “deconditioning” of sorts: “The significance I place on the world is all in my mind,”

“I believe I am on the path to enlightenment,” she says.

The crossover between dark mental states and Buddhist practices is being investigated

Mindfulness has become increasingly popular in the West over the past few years, but as Britton told The Atlantic, the practice in its original form isn’t just about relaxation: It’s about the often painstaking process of coming to terms with three specific insights of the Theravadin Buddhist tradition, which are anicca, or impermanence; dukkha, or dissatisfaction; and anatta, or not-self.

depersonalization must cause the patient distress and have an impact on her daily functioning for it to be classified as clinically significant. In this sense, it seems inappropriate to call Alice’s experiences pathological. “We have ways of measuring disorders, but you have to ask if it’s meaningful. It’s an open question,”

“I think calling it a loss of self is maybe a convenient shorthand for something that’s hard to capture,” he says. “I prefer to talk about experience—because that’s what’s important in psychiatry.”

but also to subcortical areas

These include the superior colliculus, which is crucial in eye movements and may have other sensory functions; and, probably, circuits running through the amygdala, which registers emotion.

In time, and with practice, people with brain injuries may learn to lean more heavily on such subconscious or semiconscious systems, and perhaps even begin to construct some conscious vision from them. “It’s not clear how sharp it would be,” Dr. Held said. “Probably a vague, low-resolution spatial sense. But it might allow them to move around more independently.”

That odd feeling in the pit of your stomach will help you to consider the situation carefully and be cautious about your next step.

It’s more often a friend than a foe, one that will help you notice when things are on the wrong track.

psychologists agree that anxiety becomes a problem if its alarm makes no sense — either going off for no reason or blaring when a chime would do.

Feeling a little tense before a big game is appropriate and may even improve your performance. Having a panic attack on the sidelines means your anxiety has gone too far.

At the physical level, the amygdala, a primitive structure in the brain, detects a threat and sends the heart and lungs into overdrive getting your body ready to fight or flee that threat.

Though it can sound like a daffy approach to managing tension, breathing deeply and slowly activates a powerful part of the nervous system responsible for resetting the body to its pre-anxiety state.

Am I overestimating the severity of the problem I’m facing? Am I underestimating my power to manage it?

It’s human nature to want to repeat any behavior that leads to feelings of pleasure or comfort, but every boost of avoidance-related relief increases the likelihood that you’ll want to continue to avoid what you fear.

For example, the realities of in-person school are sure to be more manageable than the harrowing scenarios your imagination can create.

Knowing what’s true about anxiety — and not — will make it easier to navigate the uncertain times ahead.

the devaluation of animals and disconnection of us from them reflect a deeper devaluation of the material universe in general

In this scheme of things, we owe nature nothing; it is to yield us everything. This is the ideology of species annihilation and environmental destruction, and also of technological development.

Further trouble is caused when the distinctions between humans and animals are then used to draw distinctions among human beings

Some of us, in short, are animals — and some of us are better than that. This, it turns out, is a useful justification for colonialism, slavery and racism.

The classical source for this distinction is certainly Aristotle. In the “Politics,” he writes, “Where then there is such a difference as that between soul and body, or between men and animals (as in the case of those whose business is to use their body, and who can do nothing better), the lower sort are by nature slaves.

Every human hierarchy, insofar as it can be justified philosophically, is treated by Aristotle by analogy to the relation of people to animals.

One difficult thing to face about our animality is that it entails our deaths; being an animal is associated throughout philosophy with dying purposelessly, and so with living meaninglessly.

this line of thought also happens to justify colonizing or even extirpating the “savage,” the beast in human form.

Our supposed fundamental distinction from “beasts, “brutes” and “savages” is used to divide us from nature, from one another and, finally, from ourselves

In Plato’s “Republic,” Socrates divides the human soul into two parts. The soul of the thirsty person, he says, “wishes for nothing else than to drink.” But we can restrain ourselves. “That which inhibits such actions,” he concludes, “arises from the calculations of reason.” When we restrain or control ourselves, Plato argues, a rational being restrains an animal.

In this view, each of us is both a beast and a person — and the point of human life is to constrain our desires with rationality and purify ourselves of animality

These sorts of systematic self-divisions come to be refigured in Cartesian dualism, which separates the mind from the body, or in Sigmund Freud’s distinction between id and ego, or in the neurological contrast between the functions of the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex.

I don’t know how to refute it, exactly, except to say that I don’t feel myself to be a logic program running on an animal body; I’d like to consider myself a lot more integrated than that.

And I’d like to repudiate every political and environmental conclusion ever drawn by our supposed transcendence of the order of nature

There is no doubt that human beings are distinct from other animals, though not necessarily more distinct than other animals are from one another. But maybe we’ve been too focused on the differences for too long. Maybe we should emphasize what all us animals have in common.

Then there is the problem that one action can arise out of many different brain states and the same event can trigger many different brain reactions.

But the amygdala lights up during fear, happiness, novelty, anger or sexual arousal (at least in women). The insula plays a role in processing trust, insight, empathy, aversion and disbelief. So what are you really looking at?

The brain is not the mind. It is probably impossible to look at a map of brain activity and predict or even understand the emotions, reactions, hopes and desires of the mind.

A glass of water may be more meaningful to you when you are dying of thirst than when you are not. Your lover means more than your friend. It’s as hard to study neurons and understand the flavors of meaning as it is to study Shakespeare’s spelling and understand the passions aroused by Macbeth.

Right now we are compelled to rely on different disciplines to try to understand behavior on multiple levels, with inherent tensions between them. Some people want to reduce that ambiguity by making one discipline all-explaining. They want to eliminate the confusing ambiguity of human freedom by reducing everything to material determinism.

An important task these days is to harvest the exciting gains made by science and data while understanding the limits of science and data.

The brain is not the mind.

“When a driver cuts you off on the highway and your blood begins to boil, it’s your prefrontal cortex that allows you to think, ‘Wait a minute, I don’t have to act this way,’”

But the prefrontal cortex doesn’t fully develop until adulthood and, according to Dr. Fields, inhibition and impulse control are among the PFC’s most complicated functions. “So when you try to reason with a child, you’re appealing to a part of the brain that isn’t fully functioning.”

Watching someone run, for instance, seems to activate a similar brain region as when you run yourself.

For example, mirror neurons have been found not only in the motor areas of the brain, but also in the areas that deal with emotion. The same part of your brain that lights up when you’re feeling happy may also light up when you observe happiness in others.

As much as you might want to try explaining to your kid why they should calm down, behavior correction rarely works when stress is high.

When we learn something—even as simple as someone’s name—we form connections between neurons in the brain. These synapses create new circuits between nerve cells, essentially remapping the brain.

The sheer number of possible connections gives the brain unfathomable flexibility—each of the brain’s 100 billion nerve cells can have 10,000 connections to other nerve cells.

Huganir and his team discovered that when mice are exposed to traumatic events, the level of neuronal receptors for glutamate increases at synapses in the amygdala, the fear center of the brain, and encodes the fear associated with the memory. Removing those receptors, however, reduces the strength of these connections, essentially erasing the fear component of the trauma but leaving the memory.

Now Huganir and his lab are developing drugs that target those receptors. The hope is that inactivating the receptors could help people with post-traumatic stress syndrome by reducing the fear associated with a traumatic memory, while strengthening them could improve learning, particularly in people with cognitive dysfunction or Alzheimer’s disease.

Dementia (di-men-sha): A loss of brain function that can be caused by a variety of disorders affecting the brain. Symptoms include forgetfulness, impaired thinking and judgment, personality changes, agitation and loss of emotional control. Alzheimer’s disease, Huntington’s disease and inadequate blood flow to the brain can all cause dementia. Most types of dementia are irreversible.

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD): A disorder in which your “fight or flight,” or stress, response stays switched on, even when you have nothing to flee or battle. The disorder usually develops after an emotional or physical trauma, such as a mugging, physical abuse or a natural disaster. Symptoms include nightmares, insomnia, angry outbursts, emotional numbness, and physical and emotional tension.

The researchers then conditioned the participants to be afraid of certain images by showing them pictures of ordinary-looking rooms lit with lamps of various hues, some of which were paired with a mild shock to the finger. Through the shocks, they were taught to fear the rooms that were lit by certain colors.

The subjects with more REM sleep also had less activity in those areas of the brain. That suggests that the more well-rested subjects may not have been hard-wiring those fears into their brains quite as strongly.

PTSD is already known to be associated with sleep disturbances, and past studies have shown that sleep-deprived people have more activity in their amygdalae upon being shown upsetting pictures.

“REM is very unique because it’s the only time that area of the brain is completely silent,” said Shira Lupkin, one of the study’s authors and a researcher with the Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience at Rutgers University.

Because of that, people who get plenty of REM sleep might be less reactive to emotional stimuli.

If the study is replicated, there could be real-world implications for stopping trauma—before it starts.

Dr. Byrne and her colleagues measured risky decision-making by presenting people with a gambling scenario. They could choose between two bets: One offered a guaranteed amount of money, while the other offered the possibility of a larger amount of money but also the possibility of receiving no cash. A different exercise measured people’s preference for immediate versus delayed rewards: Participants could choose a certain amount of money now, or a larger amount later.

Study subjects also reported Covid-19 precautions they had taken in their daily lives, including masking and social distancing.

with Covid-19, people don’t feel sick immediately after an exposure so the benefits of wearing a mask, social distancing or getting vaccinated aren’t immediately apparent. “You don’t see the lives you potentially save,” she says

“People generally are more motivated by immediate gratification or immediate benefits rather than long-term benefits, even when the long-term benefits are much greater,

Research has also found being extroverted or introverted affects how people make decisions about Covid-19 precautions. A recent study of more than 8,500 people in Japan published in the journal PLOS One in October 2020 found that those who scored high on a scale of extraversion were 7% less likely to wear masks in public and avoid large gatherings, among other precautions.

The study also found that people who scored high on a measure of conscientiousness—valuing hard work and achievement—were 31% more likely to follow Covid-19 public-health precautions.

Scientists believe that a person’s propensity to take risks is partly genetic and partly the result of early life experiences

Certain negative childhood experiences including physical, emotional or sexual abuse, parental divorce, or living with someone who was depressed or abused drugs or alcohol are linked to risky behavior in adulthood like smoking and drinking heavily, other research has found.

Studies of twins have generally found that about 30% of the difference in individual risk tolerance is genetic

And scientists have discovered that the brains of people who are more willing to take risks look different than those of people who are more cautious.

ambling task had differences in the structure and function of the amygdala, a part of the brain involved in detecting threats, and the prefrontal cortex, a region involved in executive

Even people who have the same information and a similar perception of the risks may make different decisions because of the ways they interpret the information. When public-health officials talk about breakthrough infections in vaccinated individuals being rare, for example, “rare means different things” to different people

The same person who, on his own, wouldn’t ‘hurt a fly’ will not hesitate to set a government building on fire or rob a liquor store when part of an angry mass. The most mild-mannered of us can make the meanest comments as part of an online mob.

Once caught up in the maelstrom, it is extremely difficult to hold back: you see it as your duty to participate. Any act of lynching, ancient or modern, literal or on social media, displays this feature. ‘A murder shared with many others, which is not only safe and permitted, but indeed recommended, is irresistible to the great majority of men,’ writes Elias Canetti in Crowds and Power (1960).

The herd can also give its members a disproportionate sense of personal worth. No matter how empty or miserable their individual existence may otherwise be, belonging to a certain group makes them feel accepted and recognised – even respected. There is no hole in one’s personal life, no matter how big, that one’s intense devotion to one’s tribe cannot fill, no trauma that it does not seem to heal.

to a disoriented soul, they can offer a sense of fulfilment and recognition that neither family nor friends nor profession can supply. A crowd can be therapeutic in the same way in which a highly toxic substance can have curative powers.

Herding, then, engenders a paradoxical form of identity: you are somebody not despite the fact that you’ve melted into the crowd, but because of it

You will not be able to find yourself in the crowd, but that’s the least of your worries: you are now part of something that feels so much grander and nobler than your poor self

Your connection with the life of the herd not only fills an inner vacuum but adds a sense of purpose to your disoriented existence.

The primatologist Frans de Waal, who has studied the social and political behaviour of apes for decades, concludes in his book Mama’s Last Hug (2018) that primates are ‘made to be social’ – and ‘the same applies to us.’ Living in groups is ‘our main survival strategy’

we are all wired for herding. We herd all the time: when we make war as when we make peace, when we celebrate and when we mourn, we herd at work and on vacation. The herd is not out there somewhere, but we carry it within us. The herd is deeply seated in our mind.

As far as the practical conduct of our lives and our survival in the world are concerned, this is not a bad arrangement. Thanks to the herd in our minds, we find it easier to connect with others, to communicate and collaborate with them, and in general to live at ease with one another. Because of our herding behaviour, then, we stand a better chance to survive as members of a group than on our own

The trouble starts when we decide to use our mind against our biology. As when we employ our thinking not pragmatically, to make our existence in the world easier and more comfortable in some respect or another, but contemplatively, to see our situation in its naked condition, from the outside.

In such a situation, if we are to make any progress, we need to pull the herd out of our mind and set it firmly aside, exceedingly difficult as the task may be. This kind of radical thinking can be done only in the absence of the herd’s influence in its many forms: societal pressure, political partisanship, ideological bias, religious indoctrination, media-induced fads and fashions, intellectual mimetism, or any other -isms, for that matter.

a society’s established knowledge is the glue that keeps it together. Indeed, this unique concoction – a combination of pious lies and convenient half-truths, useful prejudices and self-flattering banalities – is what gives that society its specific cultural physiognomy and, ultimately, its sense of identity

By celebrating its established knowledge, that community celebrates itself. Which, for the sociologist Émile Durkheim, is the very definition of religion.