Prefrontal Cortex

For a while now I’ve had this fascination with the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and the role it plays in learning, addiction, and those strange behaviors that make you scratch your head and wonder… “Why?”

To give you a brief description, this magnificent part of the brain is the gem of our evolution and the basis for our superb neural connections. 

The prefrontal cortex (PFC) is responsible for:

-  abstract thinking and thought analysis

-  our active working memory

-  our ability to judge right and wrong, and foresee the outcomes

-  social control (and controlling sexual urges)

-  control over intense emotional impulses (the seat of good judgment)

-  short term and long term decision making; allowing you to plan ahead and create strategies. 

-  focusing thoughts and enabling you to pay attention, learn, and concentrate on goals

-  evaluating complex concepts and tasks

My First Taste of Freedom – Part 2

The vagus nerve, the tenth cranial nerve, is really fascinating when you understand everything within the body that it is involved in. It runs from your brainstem down the whole length of the spine to the abdominal organs and innervates every organ along the way. It plays a major role in lowering the heart rate, breathing patterns, intestinal movement, sweating, and speech. It is your bodies off switch when feeling anxious and dealing with an overwhelming amount of stress, and the counterbalance to the fight or flight response. In another post I will talk about its connection to the enteric nervous system, our bodies "second brain", where our serotonin is secreted, packaged, and sent up to the brain via the vagus nerve.