Word: midbrain
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...management of it. Stress puts into motion a biological cascade involving hormones, glands and neural circuits, all activating one another in a complex feedback loop. When you are stuck in traffic or overwhelmed at work or worn down by the kids, the hypothalamus--a structure buried deep in the midbrain--tells your adrenal gland to pump out a supply of the stress hormone cortisol. Cortisol, in turn, tells your body to stop worrying about its basic metabolic needs and instead to "do the things you need to do to save yourself from whatever created the stress," says University of Virginia...
...differences in the subjects' brain scans were equally striking. The typical pain signal follows a well-worn path from the brain stem through the midbrain and into the cortex, where conscious feelings of pain arise. In Schulz-Stübner's study, the hypnotized group showed subcortical brain activity similar to that of nonhypnotized volunteers, but the primary sensory cortex stayed quiet. The "ouch" message wasn't making it past the midbrain and into consciousness...
Scientists have also learned that the old notion that 90% of sex is in the mind is literally true: the parts of the brain involved in sexual response include, at the very least, the sensory vagus nerves, the midbrain reticular formation, the basal ganglia, the anterior insula cortex, the amygdala, the cerebellum and the hypothalamus...
...pain. But she could not explain the link until the advent of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Using fMRI to view the brains of easily orgasmic women as they climaxed, either with visual stimuli or by self-stimulation, Whipple found that the body's pain-killing center in the midbrain is activated during peak arousal. Signals from this part of the brain instruct the body to release endorphins and corticosteroids, which can temporarily numb the raw nerve endings responsible for everything from menstrual cramps to arthritis and migraine for several minutes. Activating this region also reduces anxiety...
...rare and radical surgery that has wrought such changes, Dr. Hendrick cuts a trap door in the skull, removes the entire neocortex (new brain) and hippocampal area on one side (see diagram), stopping at the midbrain just above the hypothalamus. He puts nothing into the huge cavity that results, because it soon fills up with cerebrospinal fluid. The operation, he says, "is not exciting-it's terrifying, especially, on young babies. They don't have much blood anyway, and we have to get into an area that's all blood vessels. And you have...