Mindframe

What is fear made of? In his book Self Comes to Mind , Antonio Demasio describes emotions as complex, largely automated neural programs of action. He writes that emotions can be triggered by real-time events, events of the past, or images related to events. They tap into various brain regions, including the areas concerning language, movement, and reasoning. This in turn sets off a chain of chemical reactions. Certain kinds of emotions tend to activate specific brain regions, producing a kind of lock and key effect. For instance, situations involving fear unlock the amygdala and triggers additional chemicals associated with fear. Our perceptions of those internal changes are what we call feelings. (When two regions are affected at the same time, it can create a composite or mixed emotion, such as bittersweetness or nostalgia.) Feelings are the body’s readout of what’s happening internally, combined with your moment-by-moment state of mind. As Damasio says, “Feelings are the co...

There was a moment during the Lewis and Clark expedition of 1804 when, after months of deprivation, hardship, and arduous climbing, they finally scaled the eastern face of the Continental Divide. Standing exhausted on that peak, they hoped to gaze down on gentle meadows and the gateway to the sea, but instead they saw…more mountains. It was mountains as far as the eye could see. In some ways, modern biology has followed the same trajectory: in the 70's we believed we were within striking distance of the cure for cancer, steps away from enlightenment about our own internal processes. Now we know it's a much bigger expedition than we ever anticipated. When it comes to understanding the body, the complexity we face is mind-boggling, a thick and tangled web of feedback loops and inner dependencies. Take, for example, the human gut. For years, it's been relegated to the back bench of physiological study. Recently, we've begun to see that the digestive tract is, in f...

We Americans are proudly and hugely into our conveniences. We buy pre-washed lettuce and pre-cut chicken pieces because it's more convenient than washing our own vegetables or slicing up our own birds. We use our remotes because it's more convenient than getting up to change the channel. We navigate the drive-thru at Starbucks because it's more convenient than actually walking into a coffee shop. And we email the person in the cubicle next to us because who has the time for a conversation these days? Entire technologies are built around the idea of convenience. Since our GIs returned from the rather massive inconvenience of fighting World War Two, we've been obsessed in sparing ourselves extra toil wherever possible. Remember TV dinners? In minutes, you could enjoy nicely diced chicken parts with presorted peas and carrots and a little peach cobbler on the side. Usually at least one of those things was still crunchy with ice on the inside, but who could complain? I...