Word: limbic
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...Wide awake now, I thought about Roger. I saw a handsome, husky guy smiling with his confident, slightly superior mien, strolling around the small, rich town of my boyhood. I heard his low hearty laugh, remembered his cutting, just off-color humor. Then that limbic system-memory link kicked in - the thing that brings you right back to your kindergarten classroom when you get a whiff of a crayon. I smelled Roger: Chivas Regal. I called my nurse back. This was always an order that always made them nervous. "Two ounces spiritus vini vitis," I said, referring to the pharmacy...
...learned sports skill begins in the thinking part of the brain, with nerves in the prefrontal cortex. As those neurons get excited, they activate nerve cells connected to the limbic system just under the cerebrum of the brain, the area associated with emotions such as fear, anxiety, elation and satisfaction. That area is tied in turn to the motor cortex, which controls the muscles...
Corporate America, meanwhile, is hoping brain scanning can help sales. "The big question for neuroeconomics is, How does the human brain make decisions like which car to buy or what to have for lunch," says Antonio Rangel, director of the neuroeconomics lab at Stanford. Research is showing that the limbic system, which governs emotions, often overrides the logical areas of the brain, suggesting that the "rational actor" theory of economics misses deeper sources of motivation rooted in unconscious feelings and interpersonal dynamics. Instead of aiming at consumers' logical decision-making processes, companies could perhaps appeal to the fuzzier side...
...brains. The nature of the task was unimportant, but how strongly the subjects felt about performing it well--and where in the brain that feeling was processed--could say a lot. In general, the researchers found that students who scored highest in persistence had the greatest activity in the limbic region, the area of the brain related to emotions and habits. "The correlation was .8 [or 80%]," says professor of psychiatry Robert Cloninger, one of the investigators. "That's as good...
...impossible to say whether innate differences in the brain were driving the ambitious behavior or whether learned behavior was causing the limbic to light up. But a number of researchers believe it's possible for the nonambitious to jump-start their drive, provided the right jolt comes along. "Energy level may be genetic," says psychologist Simonton, "but a lot of times it's just finding the right thing to be ambitious about." Simonton and others often cite the case of Franklin D. Roosevelt, who might not have been the same President he became--or even become President...