1) 3 parts to the "Coping Brain"
A) Reptilian.
The term "reptilian" refers to our primitive, instinctive brain function that is shared by all reptiles and mammals, including humans. It is the most powerful and oldest of our coping brain functions since without it we would not be alive.
B) Emotional
The emotional coping function is also known as the mammalian brain since it is common to all mammals whose babies are born live and completely dependent upon their mother for survival. Neuroscientists, refer to this small but essential brain function as the limbic system. As we will see, without our emotional brain mothers would not feel an instinctive need to nurture and feed their young. Nor would babies recognize and sense that their survival depends upon staying close to their mother for protection. This relatively small but important brain function serves a variety of coping and sensory purposes including our capacity for emotional attachment to others. When we talk about our "feelings" we are describing sensations and impulses arising from our emotional coping brain.
We can’t help think of our emotional coping brain without realizing its connection to reptilian instincts that also help us to survive. But emotional brain does much more than keep us
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By contrast, our thinking (neocortex) human coping brain has the ability to learn and use language. These functions require the linking of learning brain cells we call neurons. These microscopic, multi-functional neurons are building blocks not only for thinking and learning, but for deciding the way we behave. Thinking brain makes possible our organizing and planning abilities. It also enables us to figure out the meaning of our emotional experiences, such as why we are upset or hurt. The meanings of emotional experiences are what we call our
Schore, A. N. (1994). Affect regulation and the origin of the self: the neurobiology of emotional development. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
I chose to read the book, “The Emotional Life of Your Brain” written my Richard J. Davidson, Ph.D. Over the past 30 years as a researcher at Harvard University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison he has made great strides connecting human emotions with brain functions and location. Davidson is also a devout Buddhist who incorporates Buddhist teaching and practice into his work. Throughout this book Davidson refers back to his experiences in India and Sir Lanka meditating and teachings from the Dalai Lama. This book covers longevity of Davidson research and the six emotional continuums that human’s fall into, which he calls our emotional fingerprint.
How does the brain cope? There are several methods in which the brain can cope in different situations. There are three parts of the coping brain: reptilian (survival), thinking (neocortex), and emotional (mammalian). The reptilian part of the brain deals with survival and brings out our instinctive side when hurt, threatened, when wanting to reproduce, or when angry. It allows the inner reptile take over and allow us to survive in a certain manner. The emotional pert of our brain is called the mammalian. Emotions can connect to memories and faces, for example, you like your best friend because they make you smile. You connect a negative feeling to a bully because they make you feel bad, so you avoid them. This is where the emotional part of
The human brain can react in much the same way. Neurodegenerative diseases are telltale signs of a "glitch" in the neural mechanical processes within the brain. Thus, pathological problems of the brain demonstrate how the brain controls movement and behavior. It is evident in the physical as well as emotional behavior. (5) It also illustrates the interaction between the central nervous system to the peripheral nervous system. There must be connections between neural activity within the brain and the rest of the central and peripheral nervous systems. One can also understand an illustration of the brain as being a "box" composed of interconnected smaller boxes. These integrated boxes in turn demonstrate the concept that, "Brain=Behavior=Being."
Brains and the more nonessential parts of the nervous system are made up of neurons (Meadows, 1993 p. 266). The brain is made up of neurons, axons, dendrites, and synapse. They all have their individual job that contributes to the functioning of the body. The weight of the brain increases as a child develops into adulthood. According to Siegler & Alibali (2005, p13), the changes in the size of the brain make it possible for advanced thinking. The neurons are the functioning core of the brain (Brotherson, 2005). The brain begins to develop in the mother’s womb and continue to develop as the child develops. The neuron has branches protruding from the cell sending signals to the synapse and axon. The synapse and axon shapes the brain which allows connections to be made. Young children learn new information when they follow the same routine on a regular base. If a parent repeatedly calls a child a certain name, then connections form that allow the child to recognize that name over time and he or she will begin to respond to that name (Brotherson, 2005). Through repetitive experiences the axons and synapse strengthen causing learning to take place.
The brain is an amazing thing, but it’s also such a weird thing. We just have this 3 pound ball of nervous tissue inside of our skull that helps us walk, talk, move, solve problems, write, read, imagine impossible situations that will stress you out at 4 AM , feel emotions, stores memories, and so many other incredible things.
The feeling of stress is inevitable to avoid and remove entirely from our lives. As we go through life and our stress levels rise, for various reasons, resulting in the feeling of worry, anxiety, insomnia, etc. We search for strategies to assist with decreasing the feeling of stress or to better help cope with it. Coping is defined as “managing taxing circumstances, expending effort to solve life’s problems, and seeking to master or reduce stress” (p521). Individuals perform a wide range of different activities to help manage stress and decrease its effects such as working out at a gym regularly, attending routine social gatherings, and reading books. One stress reducer that our society often overlooks is nature and its benefits. There have been studies on forest bathing, which involves walking a forest trail or sitting on a boulder and observing nature with all five senses, that proves to minimize stress.
While the concept of the “triune brain” is, as a whole, wrong, MacLean in 1970 did propose some interesting ideas about the evolution of the brain. He proposed that there are three main layers of evolutionary progress in the human brain. It starts in the middle with the most basic, the reptilian brain. The reptilian brain is the brainstem itself, and is responsible for the most basic of survival behaviors. The next layer out is what he called the paleomammilian brain, which is where MacLean says we find the limbic system. This part of the brain deals with social and emotions, and MacLean argues that most mammals have this. The third and most complex layer is the neomammilian or neocortex that deals with the highest of cognitive functions. LeDoux argues that while MacLean was fundamentally wrong about the physical layers of the brain, he was not far from the truth about the evolutionary brain. Emotions at the core are in part for survival, and so therefore the more complex the emotion, the more complex the functions needed.
For cognitive scientists and psychologists, the mind is that part of everyone that embodies our memories, thoughts, hopes, desires, beliefs, and experiences. On the other hand, the brain is an organ of the body. It is a collection of chemicals and blood vessels, cells and water th...
The brain is the control center of the human body. It sends and receives millions of signals every second, day and night, in the form of hormones, nerve impulses, and chemical messengers. This exchange of information makes us move, eat, sleep, and think.
Disease: any abnormal functioning of the body, organs, tissues, or cells that create the inability to function normally
The purpose of this paper to examine the evolution of the human brain that distinguishes them from other species based on the traits that humans possess: such as language, emotional complexity and consciousness. The significance of traits are due to adaptations in humans to promote the survival of our ancestors. Professor Hamilton (2012) discusses that the evolution of the human brain starts with the idea of the Triune brain, proposed by MacLean, whereby the human brain is made up of three parts: Reptilian, Paleo-mammalian, and Neo-mammalian. Animals with the neo-mammalian brain have a more complex brain compared to the other parts, since this is where the neocortex evolved. Humans essentially have this higher brain function which is responsible for our ability to think, make decisions, promote agency, and the ability to relate with each other. This concept fits into the evolutionary process since it shows how the complex the brain has become through evolutionary processes. In essence, as humans, we “have a rich, evidence-based understanding of our behavior that can lead us to plan to be ‘better’ or ‘more successful’ people” according to Professor Hamilton (2012). Thus, shows how evolution plays a significance in understanding human behavior and comparing humans with other species.
Thinking is such a strange concept to me, I think about writing a paper and I have endless possibilities of what I could write. I find it amazing that we are compared to computers, when our brains are way more powerful than the fastest computer. Our brains adapt constantly and are always relating experiences with past ones; we learn concepts, rules and create relationships. We form concepts in order to generalize, relate things, and help our memory and aid in our reactions to certain environments and situations. Unlike computers we can tell when we need to rest or when we are getting a virus. Brains store information constantly and if it doesn’t make the cut or it isn’t important enough we get rid of it, instead of storing useless information that clogs up our processing. Although our brains are more complex and definitely hold more data, computers and our brains share characteristics. We both have an input of information, the processing stage and then the final output of information. Computers only use algorithms while our brains can use algorithms and heuristics. Even though our brains use more than one form of decision making our brain gives itself obstacles. We often like to delay our decision making but in the end we try to make a decision that best serves us, if not we learn from our mistakes (hopefully) to become a better person and change the next time we are faced with a similar situation.
Life without emotions would lack meaning, texture, richness, joy and the connection with others (Leahy, R.L., et al, 2012). Emotion can be defined as various states of feelings, thoughts and verbal interactions that individuals can experience (White el al., 2012). It is from this that individuals are able to create relationships with others, in this case infants are able to create attachments to their parents. For the purpose of this essay, emotions can be categorised into two parts; over-regulation and under-regulation. Over-regulation is one's ability to suppress evidence of emotional distress in various situ...
Do animals feel joy, love, fear, anguish or despair? What ere emotions, and perhaps more importantly, how do scientists prove animals are capable of emotion? Sea lion mothers have often been seen wailing painfully and squealing eerily as they watch their babies being eaten by killer whales. Buffaloes have also been observed sliding playfully across ice, excitedly screaming “Gwaaa.” Emotions are defined broadly as psychological phenomena that help in behavioral management and control. This is a challenging question to researchers who are trying to determine the answer to this question. Through current research by close observation combined with neurobiological research, evidence that animals exhibit fear, joy happiness, shame, embarrassment, resentment, jealousy, rage, anger, love, pleasure, compassion, respect, relief, disgust, sadness, despair, and grief is likely. Charles Darwin said, “The lower animals, like man, manifestly feel pleasure and pain, happiness, and misery.” I agree with Darwin. I believe animals do exhibit emotions, and denying that animals have emotions because the subject cannot be studied directly is not a reasonable explanation.