Memory, self, identity, and consciousness. distributed sources, functions, and continuity
Memory does not store identity, and it has no center. The sensory trace, short-term maintenance, working memory, hippocampal explicit memory, and implicit memory in striatum, cerebellum, and amygdala are different sources of the same continuity. The self…
The mirror doesn’t amplify who you are. It amplifies what you’re looking for
The mirror does not amplify who you are. It amplifies what you are already looking for. It supplies visual input that can engage mirror neurons, the insula, and prefrontal control — or, under prolonged close scrutiny, the amygdala and default-mode…
Attention capitalism and the battle for the human mind
Before the day has properly begun, before a thought has had time to form in silence, the phone has already staged an entire emotional sequence: a headline that provokes, a video that absorbs, a comment that validates, a post that unsettles, a…
Dopamine’s role in fear extinction is more precise than we thought
A mouse study published in PNAS and reported by MIT’s Picower Institute shows how one dopamine pathway helps the brain learn that a once-dangerous place is now safe. The finding is causal, not just correlational, but it should not be mistaken for a…