Book: Your Brain at Work Flashcards
Your limbic system tracks your emotional relationship to what four things?
Thoughts, objects, people and events
Your limbic system determines how you feel about what, moment to moment?
The world
Which system, according to Rock, drives you behaviour, often quite unconsciously?
Your limbic system
Your limbic system is made up of - or includes - what 5 brain regions - which are connected in various ways?
- Amygdala
- Hippocampus
- Cingulate gyrus
- Orbital frontal cortex
- Insula
Without a limbic system, your basal ganglia could fire the right combination of motor neurons to get you out of bed, but once out of bed, you’d probably what?
Freeze
Why would you ‘freeze’ without a limbic system?
In a world of infinite choices every moment, there is not enough time or energy to logically process all the possible options for what to do next.
According to Dr Evian Gordon and Lea Williams, what is the overarching organising principle of the brain?
To classify the world around you into things that will either hurt you - or help you - to stay alive.
The limbic system scans data streaming into the brain, telling you what two things?
What to pay more attention to - and in what way.
What does Rock call it when the brain detects a threat that could endanger your life?
A primary threat
What does Rock call it when the brain detects something that could help you survive?
A primary reward
The limbic system is constantly making what kind of decisions?
Toward or away decisions
As you experience emotions, your limbic system automatically becomes what?
Aroused
The hippocampus is a large brain region involved in what kind of memory?
Declarative (Memory that can be consciously experienced).
What is declarative memory?
Memory that can be consciously experienced.
Your hippocampus doesn’t just remember facts, it also remembers what?
Feelings about facts. (The stronger you feel about something the easier it is to recall).
The stronger you feel about something the easier it is to what?
Recall
The amygdala is the almond-shaped region of the brain that sits just about the area responsible for smell, and is often thought of as what centre of the brain?
The “emotional centre”.
What other parts of the brain does the amygdala work with?
The hippocampus (and other limbic regions).
Which part of the brain is like the brain’s thermostat for feelings?
The amygdala
Which part of the brain tends to become aroused in proportion to the strength of an emotional response?
The amygdala
The limbic system fires up far more intensively when it perceives what, than what?
A danger, compared to a reward. (The arousal from a danger comes on faster, lasts longer and is harder to budge).
“Toward” emotions are more what than “Away” emotions?
Subtle, more easily displaced, and harder to build on.
According to Rock, everyone has a unique set of what?
“Hot buttons” that can trigger limbic system arousal.
What does Rock call the triggers that have been discussed by psychologists and philosophers for centuries, and that also go by the names, ‘the unconscious’, patterns, gremlins, demons and issues?
“Hot spots”