It never fails to amaze me the way our entire experience occurs in our brains.  The implications of this are that we can be taken for a ride by the crazy ways in which it works, or we can understand its functions and use the tool to our advantage.

A brief and simplified lesson in neuroscience:

Your prefrontal cortex has an executive role in the brain, monitoring functions such as planning, communication and proper social behavior.  This part of your brain involves an aspect of choice, and for this purpose I will compare it to a computer desktop.  On this desktop you can choose to recall, or click on, a specific thought or memory.

The amygdala processes memory and emotional reactions.  When something occurs in your life that produces an emotional response, be it positive or negative, the amygdala releases serotonin, which can be described as a little dose of emotional fluid.  These little serotonin doses of happy, mad, sad, scared and so on are then tacked onto their respective memory like, as neuroscientist John Medina puts it, post-it notes.

When one chooses to recall a specific memory on their prefrontal cortex desktop, the serotonin dose attached to it is released into their processing experience as well.  This explains why recalling certain happy or sad memories brings back the emotional reaction that was previously tacked to them.

So how do we get over things?  Just focus on clicking the happy icons and trying to hide the sad ones in an emotional Recycle Bin?  I’ve been thinking about this one, and I think there’s a much better solution.  It is possible to replace previously instated post it notes for updated and reviewed notes based on new information.   By going back and reprocessing memories with a more rational mind we can replace the emotional post-it note tacked to a specific experience for one that is more in line with the truth.  This is why psychologists take patients through their painful childhood memories, helping them to reprocess memories tacked with a child’s illogical emotional response and replacing them with a rational and mature adult interpretation of events.

There is no way to hide our memories on our vast prefrontal desktop, and external events can trigger the neurons that bring a certain item flying up into main screen like an annoying popup.  We can be much happier if we make sure no nasty post it notes fly into our experience, and that at worst they will read “This was hard, but I learned from it”.

 


Comments

Ankesh Kothari

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 13:07:06

Thanks Georgina for an excellent post.

Have stumbled upon it.

Your last paragraph may need editing though... there are ways in hiding your memories.

Here is a psychology today article that gives a brief glimpse into how to do it...

In sight, out of mind:
http://psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-20010701-000007.html

 

Brian Monahan, Expert in the Rough

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 13:57:59

Georgina,

I recommend this book by Maxwell Maltz
Psycho Cybernetics. It is a very old self help book. Maltz determined our self image drives much of our experience in life. His study of plastic surgery patients is an interesting read and surely would be appropriate in todays plastic surgery happy world.

I think it ties in well with the info you have written about over the last two days.

http://www.amazon.com/Psycho-Cybernetics-New-More-Living-Life/dp/0671700758

 

margietaylor

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 16:03:42


get that Phsycology Today subscription, very interesting and simple to follow your studies on the brain....

your genius mother

 

Frankie Taylor

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 20:55:23

Georgina - thanks for the very nice post that in 4 short paragraphs is able to deliver an overview of how individuals can leverage a better understanding of our brains. There is a substantial amount of interesting research that is readily available to us nowadays and I am sure you are over it like bees on honey. My favorite neuroscientist (Sam Harris) is doing some interesting research as well. I am biased of course as he is another fan of Spinoza. Here is a good post:

http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/adams-maxim-and-spinozas-conjecture/

Cheers and look forward to the evolution of your blog.

Your genius mother's son

 

Ali Yahya

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 14:55:18

 

Ali Yahya

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 14:56:38

Toti, you truly are on fire with these blog posts! I'm officially an avid reader (and RSS subscriber) of georgina-taylor.com. A quick glance down my Google Reader or Vienna RSS account sidebars reveals a folder, all the way to the top, that is labeled "Friends & Family" and contains my favorite subscription -- "Toti's Blog" ( :

You know, sometimes I'm amazed at the extent to which your train of thought and my own are in sync! I mean, this blog post could have been entitled "Emotional post it notes on YOUR prefrontal cortex, ALI." @_@ I guess this might just be the CS major within me talking, but there's nothing that I lOvE more than a well executed analogy between the most magnificently complex finite-state machine known to mankind (the human brain itself) and anything computer-like.

So... I say that our trains of though are in sync, and I say that because ever since I started taking this class on Operating Systems, which is precisely about the *executive* role in a computer (anyone say prefrontal cortex??), I've been thinking much along the same lines of the clever analogy you made in this post. But I guess that's something I cannot just say without elaborating a bit, so here I go: it turns out (or so claims my prof) that a computer's operating system is responsible for mediating everything about how the finite resources of the computer (e.g. time on the processor, or memory) are allocated to the running processes (a.k.a. programs).

<< ME TAKING A DEEP BREATH *o* >>

So, in the grand scheme of things, what is more important? The web browser on which you are reading this comment, the beautiFiLe song that's playing in the background, the system process that controls the rotational velocity of your fans (yes, Toti's fans--me included), or the appereance of the damn Paper-Clip with his "Could I be any more annoying?" dialog bubble in Microsoft Word?

So, here we are, this is where I finally attempt to make an analogy to an analogy:

1) Programs under the jurisdiction of an operating system, => are much like the desktop icons that you mention in your post, => which are in turn, much like the thoughts and memories in our brains!

2) Programs that, while not necessarily malignant, malfunction in some way and inadvertently subvert the Operating System's control over the system, => are much like the troubled icons or annoying popups of the desktop in your post, => which are in turn, like our illogical memories of painful experiences.

3) And finally, the act of reempowering the Operating System with control over the aforementioned rogue processes, => is much like replacing those previously instated troubled post-it notes for updated ones based on new information => which is in turn like reevaluating our painful memories and replacing them with mature adult interpretations of events!


I love it!

Your genius mother's daughter's Mexican friend

 

Post IT

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 23:55:28


Thank you for sharing this information.
keep it up

 



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