1. What is the amygdala?
"Amygdala" comes from the Greek word "amugdal", which means "almond". Amygdaloid structure located in medial temporal lobe; It is the size of a small kidney bean in the center of the brain. It is a paired structure (one in each hemisphere) and is part of the limbic system.
The amygdala has many functions;
Function 1: pressure detection.
The amygdala can detect emotional stressors (elements that may cause anxiety and sadness) and biological stressors (elements that may cause disease or injury).
It reminds us of what is terrible or dangerous. It drives our flight or fight response. Therefore, this function is crucial to survival (Bezdek &; Telzer, 20 17).
The second role: helping to regulate emotions The amygdala plays a key role in various emotions;
Different parts of it are involved in arousing fear, attack and peace.
The third function: encoding memory. The amygdala can enhance the ability of image recognition and is a treasure house of emotional memory.
To sum up, amygdala has three functions: (1) detecting stress (2) regulating mood (3) encoding memory.
What is the prefrontal cortex?
As the name implies, the prefrontal cortex is the front of the frontal lobe.
This large area in front of the brain has various functions, including:
1. control center/executive function The prefrontal cortex controls actions and thoughts.
It involves planning complex cognitive behavior, working memory, expressing personal characteristics, making choices and promoting social behavior. It is responsible for regulating emotions, conflicting goals, attention, delayed satisfaction and reflection on future consequences.
2. Adjust stress and mood.
The prefrontal cortex regulates the pressure response. It helps the amygdala to regard stress situations as less depressing or dangerous, that is, the prefrontal cortex controls and regulates the amygdala. It plays an important role in making people feel calm in tense events. Most neuroscientists agree that our prefrontal cortex is not fully mature until the age of 25, which is one of the physiological explanations why young people are more likely to make rash decisions or behave more aggressively than the elderly (Good Therapy, 202 1).
3. Personality development.
The prefrontal cortex plays an important role in how we make conscious decisions according to our own motives.
To sum up, the prefrontal cortex has three functions: (1) control center/executive function (2) adjustment of stress and emotion (3) personality development.
3. What is hippocampus? (Hippocampus? The hippocampus, named after its vague and similar shape, is responsible for coding long-term memory and helping to navigate in space.
It is one of the oldest parts of brain systematics, and it is also the first part to be artificially copied into a brain prosthesis. Hippocampus is related to the consolidation of situational memory, which is an individual's memory of experienced events and related emotions. Alzheimer's disease is harmful to hippocampus! Hippocampus is the organ responsible for storing short-term memory in the brain, and it is a combination of neurons and cells in the brain. The normal brain will transmit the received external information to the hippocampus to form short-term memory.
Due to the limited capacity, the hippocampus will automatically delete some information that has not been used for a while to make room for new information, such as computer cache.
And if some information is mentioned many times in a short time, it will transfer from hippocampus to cerebral cortex, and eventually form long-term memory. So the hippocampus is a key part of coding!
Moreover, the volume of hippocampus is directly related to people's IQ. Some scientists' hippocampus, such as Einstein, even reached the shape of a pearl.
Hippocampus is the part of the brain related to the formation, organization and storage of memory. It is the middle part of the learning closed loop, which is very important!
Studies have shown that the hippocampus of patients with Alzheimer's disease who maintain cognitive ability is larger than that of patients with dementia. Chronic seizures experienced by epileptic patients can also damage the hippocampus. Excessive drinking can also have a negative impact on the hippocampus. Long-term drinking has also been proved to lead to the loss of hippocampal tissue. Brain MRI scans show that the hippocampus of alcoholics is smaller than that of non-alcoholics.
Long-term emotional stress will also have a negative impact on the hippocampus, because stress will cause the body to release cortisol, thus damaging neurons in the hippocampus. If we are stressed, we are hurting our hippocampus! It hurts our IQ, and makes us take a step towards Alzheimer's disease!
Therefore, it is very important to learn to adjust stress! Having said that, we must learn another concept: cortisol. So, what is the role of cortisol? This is a stress hormone.
Cortisol stays in our body for a long time and will kill the hippocampus!
So at home, quarreling between adults will put pressure on children. It is hurting the child's hippocampus, hurting the information storage function of the hippocampus, and the learning ability will decline, which will hurt the child.
If you are a parent, don't nag all day, stare at children like an eagle, give them free space, trust them, let them relax, and give them the right to choose and speak. In this way, we help children develop their prefrontal cortex. Because he is the master, he actively mobilizes the consciousness of personal development. Of course, his prefrontal cortex is more and more developed and smarter!
When you come into contact with brain science, you will find that there are really shortcuts to learning. It is not that learning in the traditional concept has to suffer a lot. As long as we use the right methods and follow the laws of brain science, we can learn happily, easily and effectively.