“Most broadly, the PFC chooses between conflicting options—Coke or Pepsi; blurting out what you really think or restraining yourself; pulling the trigger… — Robert M. Sapolsky Copy Share Image
“This is great. But what I’m grasping at is an idea about a subtler goal. This thinking owes a lot to conversations… — Robert M. Sapolsky Copy Share Image
“Starting with a 1979 study, low levels of serotonin in the brain were shown to be associated with elevated levels of human… — Robert M. Sapolsky Copy Share Image
“Damasio has produced an influential theory about emotion-laden decision making, rooted in the philosophies of Hume and William James; this will soon… — Robert M. Sapolsky Copy Share Image
“The subject is also fascinating because of the nature of the revisionism—neuroplasticity radiates optimism. Books on the topic are entitled The Brain… — Robert M. Sapolsky Copy Share Image
Stress is not a state of mind... it's measurable and dangerous, and humans can't seem to find their off-switch. — 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
