#frontal cortex

Informational diagram: How sensory information is processed by the brain

Sensory information is taken in by the occipital lobe, parietal lobe, temporal lobe, and/or the olfactory lobe.

The lobes send the sensory information to the somatosensory cortex.

The somatosensory cortex sends the information to the thalamus, which connects to the limbic system.

The information is sent to the amygdala, which gives initial/primal reactions to the stimuli.

The amygdala's reactions (including fight or flight response) are sent to the hippocampus, hypothalamus, and the frontal cortex.

The pituitary gland receives signals from the hypothalamus, then sends signals for the endocrine system to excrete hormones throughout the body. The frontal cortex sends rationalized information to the motor cortex, which controls voluntary actions.

Source linked below: "Meet Your Master - Getting to Know Your Brain: Crash Course Psychology #4" by Hank Green's Crash Course - February 24th, 2014

1 hour talk by Tara Branch on Gratitude and the Human Disposition.

Story of 2 travelers (4:00-6:30):

A traveler came to the edge of a town and encountered a wise woman and was curious to hear about the town. He said "So, what kind of people live here?" And she said, "Well, what kind of people lived where you came from?" And he said, "Oh well, unfortunately they were pretty untrustworthy, they were just greedy and nasty, dishonest, and ill-tempered." And the wise woman said, "Well, those are the kind of people you will probably find here."

A couple days later, another traveler came by and he asked the same question, "So, what kind of people are here?" And she said, "Well, what kind of people lived where you came from?" And he said, "Oh! Generally really good-natured people, generous, patient, fun-loving, playful people." And the wise woman said, "Well, you will likely find the same kind of people here."

This story tells us a lot about how our level of happiness often comes out of how we perceive ourselves and each other: What is your habitual stance? Do you live in your negativity bias? Your Limbic Survival Brain? (do you always notice all the flaws, feel ready to protect yourself, fixated on what's wrong with other people). Or, do you live in the more recently evolved brain? (the frontal cortex, which is designed for "pro-social behavior"). Many people identify with the first traveler—especially when we're stressed, the limbic survival brain is alive and active. And, we can cultivate the same lens the second traveler lives through. We can learn to see goodness, and that will change. your. world.

If you find yourself living as the first traveler, remember:

It's not your fault. It is a product of our conditioning. (Societal, and Familial). And, when we blame ourselves, we only fuel limbic activity.

Everyone of us has the potential to evolve and awaken our hearts to a natural flow of gratitude, generosity, and happiness. It's part of being human. We all have all the equipment.

I thought about how that must be shaping her brain, particularly the part dedicated to planning and decision-making, the frontal cortex. Compared to other regions, it’s uniquely malleable, or plastic. Stanford behavioral endocrinologist Robert Sapolsky calls it “the brain’s hotspot for plasticity.” Our brains are changing, forming new neural connections and severing others all the time, of course. 

But at a young age the brain’s plasticity is much more pronounced. This means that chess offers a unique opportunity. It could perhaps be the ultimate window through which we might see how our mental powers shift during our lives. This is because the moves of professional chess players in games, going back over a century, are recorded, and so researchers can objectively analyze the quality of players’ moves over their career, inferring cognitive rise and decline. And that’s exactly what a recent study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, did.

https://www.pnas.org/content/117/44/27255#xref-fn-5-1

“The evidence reveals a hump-shaped performance pattern over the life cycle. Performance increased for more recent cohorts and over time. The age profile mainly changed across cohorts rather than over time, with the performance increasing faster at younger ages.”

Over the last century or so, chess players, the study shows, have been getting better as well as younger. This parallels the so-called Flynn effect in intelligence, or a notable rise in raw cognitive scores. “Performance increased steadily over the course of the twentieth century,” the researchers write, “but the data also reveal a steepening of the performance increase during the 1990s.”

https://ift.tt/3hAyJQz

Petit point méthodologique: je suis pas mal de sites et de blogs via leurs flux RSS sur un service – Newsblur – qui me permet de sauvegarder les chroniques qui peuvent m’intéresser. C’est ainsi que Passage, album du groupe polonais Frontal Cortex, est arrivé sur ma liste de lecture.

Le défaut de cette méthode, c’est que si je ne fais pas régulièrement un peu de tri, j’ai des trucs qui datent. Ainsi, cette chronique de Néoprog a été publiée en mars 2019 et l’album lui-même date de 2018. Au temps pour les nouveautés!

Frontal Cortex est donc un quatuor venu d’Olsztyn, au nord de la Pologne, dans l’ancienne Prusse orientale. Leur musique est un rock progressif moderne qui rappelle pas mal leurs compatriotes de Riverside, mais avec un côté plus mélancolique (normal, vu son nom) qui me fait également penser à Porcupine Tree.

Passage est un album d’environ trois quarts d’heure, composés de dix pistes. la plupart des compositions sont de taille standard, entre quatre et cinq minutes. Seules la première piste, courte, et la dernière, un poil plus longue que la moyenne, sortent de ce créneau.

Ce format révèle un des défauts de cet album: il a une certaine tendance à la monotonie. Il y a certes quelques explosions d’énergie qui viennent parfois bousculer l’ensemble, mais l’impression globale est celle d’une homogénéité des sonorités. C’est parfois un point fort, mais ici, je trouve que ça écrase un peu l’album.

Parce que, mine de rien, Frontal Cortex a pas mal de qualités à faire jouer, notamment une grande maîtrise, à la fois dans le style et dans leur jeu instrumental. Mon collègue de Néoprog avait mentionné une production un peu brouillonne, mais je n’ai pas eu cette impression.

Passage est le premier album de Frontal Cortex et, en tant que tel, il n’a pas à faire rougir ses concepteurs. Il est globalement bien carré, avec quelques morceau de très haute tenue, comme « Graceless », « Hangman », l’instrumental « Breakthrough » ou le morceau-titre.

Je me prends néanmoins à regretter que le groupe ne se laisse pas aller à lâcher les bourrins (comme sur « Blurred Line », par exemple). On a l’impression qu’ils se brident et c’est dommage. Si le rock progressif moderne à la Riverside, en plus mélancolique, vous branche, Frontal Cortex a sans doute de quoi vous satisfaire. Passage est disponible sur Bandcamp.

[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=986143306 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false artwork=small]

Bonus: la vidéo de « Before the Storm »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pV4Lt2cPfXc

L’article Frontal Cortex: Passage est apparu en premier sur Blog à part.

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