Making sense of the Limbic System

[corpus callosum]

Limbic system - Wikipedia

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For those members who have come across the terms 'limbic system', 'amygdala' and 'hypothalamus' etc but are baffled by it all, heres a quick overview of what these bits do.

If you first look at the 3 links above in the order presented, this will allow you to get a minds-eye view of where these parts reside and how they appear in terms of shape/structure.

For we humans to survive, we need to continually adapt to preserve the internal environment of the body.We achieve this without being conscious of the process (via the AUTONOMIC nervous system).Our internal organs and circulatory system have pressure and chemical sensitive receptors which tell the HYPOTHALAMUS whats going on in the body ,and its here where the internal physical/chemical environment is maintained in a balanced and stable fashion.It achieves this through hormonal means (via the PITUITARY GLAND) and through the AUTONOMIC nervous system.

Information from the outside world (vision, smell, hearing, touch) determines our behavioural responses so we function properly within the physical and social environment. Lower animals are mostly concerned with satisfying the drives of thirst, hunger, sex and defence in an 'instinctive' way and they rely heavily on their senses of smell (olfaction); we humans have evolved beyond this and rely more on visual/spatial information.We can adapt to a changing environment and to achieve this, we use the ability to learn new responses based on previous experience ie memory.The LIMBIC SYSTEM, which is strongly linked to the HYPOTHALAMUS, is vital in producing the complex and non-stereotyped human behaviour which is ,in effect, an attempt to preserve the individual in the physical and changing social environment. The association areas of the CORTEX analyse the info from the outside world, including other humans (their responses to our behaviour partly via 'social cues'), enabling the LIMBIC SYSTEM to produce adaptive personal and social responses.

If the occasion demands it, the HYPOTHALAMUS can over-ride the LIMBIC SYSTEM to produce a totally instinctive response such as is required when ones life is on the line, and this can include appropriate motor behaviour (such as fleeing) via the BASAL GANGLIA, a part of which makes up the LIMBIC SYSTEM.

The LIMBIC SYSTEM links complex 'goal-directed' behaviour to more primitive instinctive behaviour.Put simply, the information from the outside world (vision, hearing, touch etc) is collected by the senses then 'refined' in the association areas of the CORTEX (in the parietal/occipital area, where its put into a perceptuospatial perspective) from where it passes to the areas concerned with planned behaviour (FRONTAL LOBE asscociation areas) and giving it semantic meaning (TEMPORAL lobe association areas).From the frontal and temporal lobes the 'information' (which now has meaning and an idea of a subsequent 'plan of action') enters the LIMBIC SYSTEM at the AMYGDALA (or HIPPOCAMPUS).The AMYGDALA adds an emotional connotation to experience, particularly that relevant to social stimuli, and the HIPPOCAMPUS permits a link to previous experience via its role in memory.

So, to sum up, the HYPOTHALAMUS, LIMBIC SYSTEM and ASSOCIATION CORTICES act as interfaces in a hierarchical fashion between the internal structure of the individual, both physical and emotional/behavioural, and the environment.

 

[embracethevoid]

And it's around this crucial interplay of the three layers of our brains (ancient/instinctive, emotional, newest/neocortex) that this article revolves: Dextronet - Outsmarting Yourself For Success.

The gist of it: Whatever your forebrain thinks "I'll do" is irrelevant if the ancient brain disagrees. The ancient brain has the last call on every single decision you ever make. So all those times you sit around thinking "I really want to do some work" but you sit around looking at cat pictures, your forebrain is conceding to the hindbrain.

The hindbrain responds not to thought. It responds to utility: "how much can I get from this?", and difficulty: "how hard is it going to be get if I do that?"

So we have to bridge our thought to it in such a way as to maximise utility and minimise difficulty for what we want to do. And we must also maximise difficulty for things we do not want to do, and minimise their utility.

To put it simply: make working the easy option and slacking off the hard option. Your brain naturally always chooses the path of least resistance so if there is less resistance in the neural circuitry pointed in the direction of a productive reality the signal flow will automatically go there. I used this knowledge to stop smoking absolutely effortlessly.