Word: limbic
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Food and Drug Administration is less calm. Neither it nor anyone else knows precisely how kava works. The prevailing thinking is that its active ingredient is a class of molecules known as kavalactones, plant metabolites that affect the limbic system, the emotional center of the brain. According to Cass, kava works on the same amino-acid sites as Valium; while Valium binds to so-called GABA receptors, kava causes more of them to form...
...probably no coincidence that the relaxation response and religious experience share headquarters in the brain. Studies show that the relaxation response is controlled by the amygdala, a small, almond-shaped structure in the brain that together with the hippocampus and hypothalamus makes up the limbic system. The limbic system, which is found in all primates, plays a key role in emotions, sexual pleasure, deep-felt memories and, it seems, spirituality. When either the amygdala or the hippocampus is electrically stimulated during surgery, some patients have visions of angels and devils. Patients whose limbic systems are chronically stimulated by drug abuse...
...such targets, at such spotless innocence and hope, cannot be comprehended or diagnosed in language that is less than absolute. "Haywire" won't do. "Psychotic," "maniac" and so on suggest mere dysfunction, or else a morally neutral spasm of the reptilian brain, a bug or two in the limbic system. Nor is there much comfort in thinking that such behavior arises from some Darwinian maladaption. "Man has developed so rapidly," Loren Eiseley wrote, "that he has suffered a major loss of precise instinctive controls of behavior. So society must teach those controls. And when it does not, then the human...
Emotional life grows out of an area of the brain called the limbic system, specifically the amygdala, whence come delight and disgust and fear and anger. Millions of years ago, the neocortex was added on, enabling humans to plan, learn and remember. Lust grows from the limbic system; love, from the neocortex. Animals like reptiles that have no neocortex cannot experience anything like maternal love; this is why baby snakes have to hide to avoid being eaten by their parents. Humans, with their capacity for love, will protect their offspring, allowing the brains of the young time to develop...
...nine pages to a Robert Hughes essay on Congress, America's priorities and the arts. This is an important topic worthy of serious debate. Yet, instead of debating the message, Hughes decided to attack the messengers. It is unfortunate Hughes chose to resort to name-calling: "Neanderthals," "Jurassic...[with] limbic forebrains," "insatiable Fundamentalist Christian right wing" and "Jacks-in-office" are not helpful contributions to an important discussion of our nation's priorities...