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prefrontal cortex’s ability to boss the brain increases with age.

reward system can outmuscle the master planner.

adolescent brain specifically evolved to respond to rewards so teens would leave behind the protection provided by their parents and start exploring their environment — a necessary step toward the independence they will need in adulthood.

So that’s why you have parents to act as your prefrontal cortex,” Frank jokes. Then, all too often, he says, “you reach adolescence and you don’t listen to your parents anymore.”

brain acts as the sculptor and chops away excess synapses. Scientists refer to this process as synaptic pruning.

If you have ever thought that the choices teenagers make are all about exploring and pushing limits, you are on to something

necessary phase in teen development

exploratory period.

Even laboratory mice experience a similar phase during their development.

Young mice that explore most tend to live longest

magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner. The scanner relies on a powerful magnet and radio waves to create detailed images of the brains

Teens also can play games that require them to make choices,

observing and measuring which parts of the teens’ brains are most active

During the risk-taking and rewards-based tests, one region deep inside the brain shows more activity in adolescents than it does in children or adults, Crone says. This region, known as the ventral striatum, is often referred to as the “reward center”

Adolescents are particularly sensitive and responsive to influence by friends, desires and emotions, researchers say. It’s one of the hallmarks of this stage in life.

eel good” response helps explain why they often give in to impulsive desires.

to be shouting louder” between the ages of 13 and 17 than at any other time during human development.

prefrontal cortex, it’s the brain’s master planner.

brain is locked in a tug-of-war between the logical pull of the prefrontal cortex and the impulsive pull of the ventral striatum.

prefrontal cortex seems to lag in developing. It turns out this delay serves an important evolutionary function,

So it’s important that the master planner not be too rigid or restrictive during adolescence. Instead, it stays open to learning.

One of the processes involves axons, or fibers that connect nerve cells. From infancy, these fibers allow one nerve cell to talk to another. Throughout the teen years, fatty tissue starts to insulate the axons from interfering signals — it is a bit like the plastic that coats electrical cables.

In axons, the insulating tissue allows information to zip back and forth between brain cells much more quickly. It also helps build networks that link the prefrontal cortex with other brain regions, allowing them to work together more efficiently.

The second key process involves synapses. A synapse is like a dock between nerve cells. Nerve cells communicate by transmitting chemical and electrical signals. Those signals move through the synapses.

brain starts discarding many of these connections

So the brain strengthens the synapses it really needs and eliminates those that either slow things down or aren’t useful.

- Un meilleur contrôle de la pression sanguine.- Une amélioration de la concentration et de l'attention.- Un ralentissement du vieillissement.- Une baisse des symptômes chez les personnes souffrant de maladies gastro-intestinales (syndrome du colon irritable, maladie de Crohn, etc.).- Une amélioration de la fonction cardiaque.- Une amélioration des symptômes de certaines maladies cutanées (psoriasis, eczéma).- Une manière efficace de soulager la douleur.- Un renforcement du système immunitaire.

On a ainsi découvert chez eux des zones d'activité cérébrale en « mouvement » dans la région du cortex (le siège des émotions positives), ainsi qu'une production accrue d'ondes gamma.

le cerveau n'est pas une « masse » immuable

la méditation permet de changer littéralement la morphologie de notre cerveau et par extension, à avoir un impact réel sur le vieillissement, les maladies, etc.

c'est une forme de spiritualité non religieuse qui convient à tout le monde et procure un grand bien-être.

La méditation consiste à faire le vide total en soi et à se concentrer sur ce qui passe à l'intérieur de notre corps (respiration, fonctions vitales, etc.).

gymnastique du cerveau.

Il change et se modèle en tenant compte de nos expériences, nos apprentissages et nos émotions.

De la même manière, il est possible, à force d'entrainement, de modifier notre cerveau à l'aide d'exercices de méditation

Les personnes qui ont intégré la méditation à leur vie quotidienne remarquent rapidement une amélioration globale de leur humeur, ainsi qu'une baisse du stress. Ils affirment se sentir plus sereins, en paix avec eux-mêmes et les autres

long-term improvements in mental function and is the single best thing one can do to slow the cognitive decline that accompanies normal aging.

a short-lasting, deeply euphoric state that's well beyond the simple relaxation or peacefulness felt by many following intense exercise.

there are different types of endorphins

that are synthesized within the brain and therefore could cause euphoria without crossing the blood-brain barrier.

The researchers found that this long run was associated with increased opioid release in the runner's' brains, particularly in the prefrontal cortex

and the anterior cingulate cortex and insula

It's likely that runner's high is not entirely mediated by the opioid system: Exercise also increases the levels of endocannabinoids, the brain's natural cannabis-like molecules, in the bloodstream.

Thus exercise-induced increases in endocannabinoid levels in blood are presumably mirrored in the brain and could also contribute to the euphoria of runner's high.

For over 27,000 years

stories has been one of our most fundamental communication methods.

Our brain on stories: How our brains become more active when we tell stories

We all enjoy a good story,

why do we feel so much more engaged when we hear a narrative about events?

we listen to a powerpoint presentation with boring bullet points, a certain part in the brain gets activated.

It's in fact quite simple. I

Broca's area and Wernicke's area

language processing parts in the brain, where we decode words into meaning.

things change dramatically.

how delicious certain foods were, our sensory cortex lights up. If it's about motion, our motor cortex gets active:

but any other area in our brain that we would use when experiencing the events of the story are too.

A story can put your whole brain to work.

can have the same effect on them too.

The brains of the person telling a story and listening to it can synchronize, says Uri Hasson from Princeton:

By simply telling a story, the woman could plant ideas, thoughts and emotions into the listeners' brains."

Evolution has wired our brains for storytelling—how to make use of it

hy does the format of a story, where events unfold one after the other, have such a profound impact on our learning?

We are wired that way.

While we are busy searching for a similar experience in our brains, we activate a part called insula, which helps us relate to that same experience of pain, joy, or disgust.

We think in narratives all day long,

We make up (short) stories in our heads for every action and conversation.

In fact, Jeremy Hsu found [that] "personal stories and gossip make up 65% of our conversations."

henever we hear a story, we want to relate it to one of our existing experiences.

metaphors work so well with us.

story, if broken down into the simplest form, is a connection of cause and effect.

John Bargh

We link up metaphors and literal happenings automatically. Everything in our brain is looking for the cause and effect relationship of something we've previously experienced.

ou mention the same story to him, as if it was your idea?

According to Uri Hasson from Princeton, a story is the only way to activate parts in the brain so that a listener turns the story into their own idea and experience.

tell them a story,

According to Princeton researcher Hasson, storytelling is the only way to plant ideas into other people's minds.

Write more persuasively—bring in stories from yourself or an expert

multitasking is so hard for us.

ask for quotes from the top folks in the industry or simply find great passages they had written online.

The simple story is more successful than the complicated one

easy to convince ourselves that they have to be complex and detailed to be interesting.

the simpler a story, the more likely it will stick.

Using simple language as well as low complexity is the best way to activate the brain regions that make us truly relate to the happenings of a story.

xchanging stories with those of experts.

educe the number of adjectives or complicated nouns in a presentation or article

Our brain learns to ignore certain overused words and phrases that used to make stories awesome.

some women develop PTSD after a traumatic childbirth.

PTSD may also occur following a heart attack or diagnosis of cancer.

Avoidance: Avoiding thoughts, feelings, activities, places, and people associated with the trauma. This may result in social withdrawal and becoming numb to positive as well as negative emotions.

Symptoms lasting more than three months are considered chronic PTSD

Occasionally, someone develops “delayed PTSD” six months later or more, following a reminder of the event.

In the June 28, 2004, Archives of Internal Medicine, researchers from the Veterans Administration reported that women with PTSD have more medical conditions and worse physical health than non-traumatized women, even those with depression.

“The amygdala appears to be overreactive in PTSD. We’re currently examining whether it is already overreactive, making someone more vulnerable to PTSD, or becomes that way in response to trauma,”

the hippocampus and the anterior cingulate cortex, appear not to function as well in those with PTSD.”

gradual and repeated exposure can reduce symptoms and help change how you respond to the triggering situations.

although not all clinical trials have shown them to work better than placebo.

adrenaline acts to strengthen memories,

testing whether an adrenaline-reducing medication, the hypertension drug propranolol, might help block abnormal memory formation and prevent PTSD.

y rare, a 2009 study by Belgian researchers found that 41 percent of hospital and rehab patients with a vegetative state diagnosis were actually minimally conscious

n a few cases, this technology has enabled rudimentary communication with patients trapped inside an unresponsive body. In the future, some scientists believe, it may be possible to directly decode these patients’ thoughts.

technology that created these disorders in the first place.

ut a badly damaged brain is not necessarily unconscious. The recent research tells us quite clearly that human consciousness is not binary. It can exist in degrees, fade in and out, even when the body is unresponsive.

wen also described a new way to assess mental function in unresponsive patients. It involves scanning someone’s brain as they watch an 8 minute clip of an Alfred Hitchcock film. When healthy people do this, various parts of the brain synchronize their activity at certain times in the clip. Owen argues that if brain injury patients exhibit similar patterns, it could be a telltale sign of residual cognitive function.

imple yes-no communication probably isn’t enough to allow patients to participate in decisions about their care.

Gallant’s lab has shown that it’s possible to reconstruct still images and video clips from the patterns of activity elicited in the brain of the person viewing them. If Gallant can see what your visual cortex is doing, he can tell you, more or less, what you’re looking at.

16 was the average age these individuals started smoking, and they had not stopped since.

already show signs of psychotic illness do experience adverse effects from smoking marijuana.

smaller volume of gray matter in their orbitofrontal cortex, which is usually associated with addiction.

depleting their gray matter

just the right degree of social strife to facilitate the splitting of overlarge groups in primitive societies

Perhaps some of their executive problems, for example their problems with verbal fluency tests, can actually give rise to creativity?

general agreement that creativity involves the production of novel, useful products"

multi-trait, multi-method analyses

produce novel and quality ideas and products.

over-inclusive thinking, would facilitate originality which, in optimum circumstances, would lead to creativity.

Three quarters of all people inherit a version of this gene; it then enhances the brain’s ability to think by improving the information processing in the prefrontal cortex.

his gene also shapes and controls the nerve circuit closely involved with schizophrenia, hence the connection between genius and madness.

It could be perhaps that although psychosis can cause enhanced creativity, the patient is too inhibited by their condition to use it to their advantage.

Meyer-Lindenberg and colleagues in the NIMH Genes, Cognition and Psychosis program

He seems calm, even normal

his IQ is over 140

The subjects rate whether the picture is a moral violation on a scale of 1 to 5. Kiehl says most psychopaths do not differ from normal subjects in the way they rate the photos: Both psychopaths and the average person rank the KKK with a burning cross as a moral violation. But there's a key difference: Psychopaths' brains behave differently from that of a nonpsychopathic person. When a normal person sees a morally objectionable photo, his limbic system lights up. This is what Kiehl calls the "emotional circuit," involving the orbital cortex above the eyes and the amygdala deep in the brain. But Kiehl says when psychopaths like Dugan see the KKK picture, their emotional circuit does not engage in the same way.

He notes that alcoholics have brain abnormalities. Do we give them a pass if they kill someone while driving drunk?

Neuroscience and neuroimaging is going to change the whole philosophy about how we punish and how we decide who to incapacitate and how we decide how to deal with people

Just like DNA, he believes brain scans will eventually be standard fare. And that, he and others say, could upend our notions of culpability, crime and punishment.

significance of these findings cannot be underestimated

the biological basis of psychopathy remains poorly understood

To date, nobody has investigated the 'connectivity' between the specific brain regions implicated in psychopathy.

Earlier studies had suggested that dysfunction of specific brain regions might underpin psychopathy

amygdale

the degree of abnormality was significantly related to the degree of psychopathy. These results suggest that psychopaths have biological differences in the brain which may help to explain their offending behaviours.

phenotypes

My goal is to convince skeptics that a combination of “hard” and “soft” interdisciplinary research is necessary to advance the study of animal emotions.

broadly defined as psychological phenomena that help in behavioral management and control

It is important to extend our research beyond the underlying physiological mechanisms that mask the richness of the emotional lives of many animals and learn more about how emotions serve them as they go about their daily activities

emotions are real and that they are extremely important,

René Descartes

B. F. Skinner

Why then are there competing views on the nature of animal emotions? In part, this is because some people view humans as unique animals, created in the image of God

researchers studying animal behavior came to realize that there was too little in studies of animal emotions and minds that was directly observable, measurable, and verifiable, and chose instead to concentrate on behavior because overt actions could be seen, measured objectively, and verified

Most researchers now believe that emotions are not simply the result of some bodily state that leads to an action

William James and Carl Lange

Walter Cannon's criticisms

drugs producing bodily changes like those accompanying an emotional experience

do not produce the same type of conscious experience of fear

Primary emotions, considered to be basic inborn emotions

Natural selection has resulted in innate reactions that are crucial to individual survival.

are wired into the evolutionary old limbic system (especially the amygdala), the “emotional” part of the brain

substrate

. Each is connected to the other two but each also has its own capacities

current research (LeDoux 1996) indicates that all emotions are not necessarily packaged into a single system, and there may be more than one emotional system in the brain.

Secondary emotions are those that are experienced or felt, evaluated, and reflected on. Secondary emotions involve higher brain centers in the cerebral cortex.

ethologists

cognitive ethologists want to know what it is like to be another animal.

concerns how emotions and cognition are linked

A sense of self in the act of knowing is created,

various brain structures map both the organism and external objects

I am inclined merely to delete it [the mental realm] from biological explanation, because it is an entirely private phenomenon, and biology must deal with the publicly demonstrable.”

abanac postulated that the first mental event to emerge into consciousness was the ability of an individual to experience the sensations of pleasure and displeasure

Examples of animal emotions

Studies of the chemistry of play support the idea that play is enjoyable.

rats enjoy being playfully tickled.

grief in geese

grief and depression in orphan elephants is a real phenomeno

It is unlikely that romantic love (or any emotion) first appeared in humans with no evolutionary precursors in animals

No one discipline will be able to answer all of the important questions that still need to be dealt with in the study of animal emotions

However, research that reduces and minimizes animal behavior and animal emotions to neural firings, muscle movements, and hormonal effects will not likely lead us significantly closer to an understanding of animal emotions.

studies of the behavior of captive animals

Field work also can be problematic. It can be too uncontrolled to allow for reliable conclusions to be drawn.

Emotions are an integral part of human life, so why not for other animals?

in many instances, differences in degree rather than differences in kind.