Stress, the Immune System, and Your Spleen

Stress, the Immune System, and Your Spleen

We know that stress—especially of the traumatic variety—can affect the shape and function of structures in the brain. For example, studies on survivors with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) reveal that the amygdala (the almond-shaped threat and danger detection center of the brain) can actually enlarge in the presence of an ongoing, unmitigated survival response. Conversely, the hippocampus (a horseshoe-shaped entity…

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The Neuroscience of Well-Being, Mindfulness & Love

The Neuroscience of Well-Being, Mindfulness & Love

I recently attended Omega NYC’s “The Neuroscience of Well-Being, Mindfulness & Love” workshop at the New York Society for Ethical Culture. It was led by Jack Kornfield, Ph.D., and Dan Siegel, M.D.—two people I’d wanted to hear in person for years. Kornfield’s Seeking the Heart of Wisdom, which he wrote with Joseph Goldstein, was one of the first books about…

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False Memories and the Meaning of Life

False Memories and the Meaning of Life

If the heart is a pump, the liver is a strainer, and the stomach is a composter, then is it fair to say that the brain is a computer? Neurobiology, wrote Jerry Coyne, a professor of biology at the University of Chicago, tells us that “our brains are simply meat computers that, like real computers, are programmed by our genes…

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