“Powerful support for an amygdaloid role in fear processing comes from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In PTSD sufferers the amygdala is overreactive… — Robert M. Sapolsky Copy Share Image
“Joseph LeDoux at New York University has shown how the BLA learns fear.fn14,20 Expose a rat to an innate trigger of fear—a… — Robert M. Sapolsky Copy Share Image
“In a healthy environment, increased threat sensitivity, poor emotion control and enhanced fear memory in MAOA-L [i.e., the “warrior” variant] men might… — Robert M. Sapolsky Copy Share Image
“The dissociation between fear and aggression is evident in violent psychopaths, who are the antithesis of fearful—both physiologically and subjectively they are… — Robert M. Sapolsky Copy Share Image
“Fear, anxiety, the terror of mortality—it must be a drag being right-wing. But despite that, in a multinational study, rightists were happier… — Robert M. Sapolsky Copy Share Image
“Sustained stress has numerous adverse effects. The amygdala becomes overactive and more coupled to pathways of habitual behavior; it is easier to… — Robert M. Sapolsky Copy Share Image
“Testosterone also increases confidence and optimism, while decreasing fear and anxiety.5 This explains the “winner” effect in lab animals, where winning a… — Robert M. Sapolsky Copy Share Image
“Moreover, sustained stress and glucocorticoid exposure enhance LTP and suppress LTD in the amygdala, boosting fear conditioning, and suppress LTP in the… — Robert M. Sapolsky Copy Share Image
“Secure-attachment 7Rs show more generosity than average. Thus 7R has something to do with generosity—but its effect is entirely context dependent.” — Robert M. Sapolsky Copy Share Image
But if you get chronically, psychosocially stressed, you're going to compromise your health. So, essentially, we've evolved to be smart enough to make ourselves… — Robert M. Sapolsky Copy Share Image
“Finally, for the same criminal conviction, the more stereotypically Af-rican a black individual’s facial features, the longer the sentence.15 In contrast, juries view black… — Robert M. Sapolsky Copy Share Image
“So testosterone does subtle things to behavior. Nonetheless, this doesn’t tell us much because everything can be interpreted every which way. Testosterone increases anxiety—you… — Robert M. Sapolsky Copy Share Image
“pain makes aggressive people more aggressive, while doing the opposite to unaggressive individuals.” — Robert M. Sapolsky Copy Share Image
“Thus, for our purposes, genes aren’t about inevitability. Instead they’re about context-dependent tendencies, propensities, potentials, and vulnerabilities. All embedded in the fabric of the… — Robert M. Sapolsky Copy Share Image
“If we accept that there will always be sides, it’s a nontrivial to-do list item to always be on the side of angels. Distrust… — Robert M. Sapolsky Copy Share Image
“In other words, the more genomically complex the organism, the larger the percentage of the genome devoted to gene regulation by the environment.” — Robert M. Sapolsky Copy Share Image
“The subject of one experiment is a rat that receives mild electric shocks (roughly equivalent to the static shock you might get from scuffing… — Robert M. Sapolsky Copy Share Image
“No brain region is an island, and the formation of circuits connecting far-flung brain regions is crucial—how else can the frontal cortex use its… — Robert M. Sapolsky Copy Share Image
“We process emotionally salient information more rapidly and automatically, but with less accuracy. Frontal function—working memory, impulse control, executive decision making, risk assessment, and… — Robert M. Sapolsky Copy Share Image
“Most broadly, the PFC chooses between conflicting options—Coke or Pepsi; blurting out what you really think or restraining yourself; pulling the trigger or not.… — Robert M. Sapolsky Copy Share Image
