The Brain That Changes Itself

1930s the psychiatrist Paul Schilder studied how a healthy sense of being and a “stable” body image are related to the vestibular sense

As the scientists randomly changed the light patterns on the computer screen and Belle’s real arm moved the joystick, so did the robotic arms, six hundred miles apart, powered only by her thoughts transmitted by computer.

more you do it, the more you want to do it; the less you do it, the less you want to do it.

Scans show that the more obsessive a person is, the more activated the orbital frontal cortex is.

Normally, when we make a mistake, three things happen. First, we get a “mistake feeling,” that nagging sense that something is wrong. Second, we become anxious, and that anxiety drives us to correct the mistake. Third, when we have corrected the mistake, an automatic gearshift in our brain allows us to move on to the next thought or activity. Then both the “mistake feeling” and the anxiety disappear.

Sherrington supported the idea that all of our movement occurs in response to some stimulus and that we move, not because our brains command it, but because our spinal reflexes keep us moving. This idea was called the “reflexological theory of movement” and had come to dominate neuroscience.

Children are born helpless and will, in the critical period of sexual plasticity, do anything to avoid abandonment and to stay attached to adults, even if they must learn to love the pain and trauma that adults inflict.

Evidence suggests that unlearning existing memories is necessary to make room for new memories in our networks.

We love being in love not only because it makes it easy for us to be happy but also because it makes it harder for us to be unhappy.

we have two separate pleasure systems in our brains, one that has to do with exciting pleasure and one with satisfying pleasure. The exciting system relates to the “appetitive” pleasure that we get imagining something we desire, such as sex or a good meal. Its neurochemistry is largely dopamine-related, and it raises our tension level.
The second pleasure system has to do with the satisfaction, or consummatory pleasure, that attends actually having sex or having that meal, a calming, fulfilling pleasure. Its neurochemistry is based on the release of endorphins, which are related to opiates and give a peaceful, euphoric bliss.