Sublime

This analytical, active part of our mind in the prefrontal cortex is physiologically expensive if it is not supported by the more primal regions of the brain that we associate with the unconscious mind. The function of the unconscious regions of the brain is known in cognitive science as “hot cognition” or “System 1.” Hot cognition is the function

Crucial for understanding trauma, the frontal lobes are also the seat of empathy—our ability to “feel into” someone else.

There could be only one explanation for such results: In response to the trauma itself, and in coping with the dread that persisted long afterward, these patients had learned to shut down the brain areas that transmit the visceral feelings and emotions that accompany and define terror. Yet in everyday life, those same brain areas are responsible fo

Ultimately, then, we could say the mission of the brain is this: control.

The disappearance of medial prefrontal activation could explain why so many traumatized people lose their sense of purpose and direction.