The 3 Brains in Your Head – Free Neuroscience Course

Hello friends!

To be honest, I’ve always been suspicious of the story of prehistoric man, the man-animal who fights with other animals to hunt and survive. I don’t know how to explain very well why this story seems wrong to me, but, anyway, it seems to me that a puzzle is missing to better understand the beginning of humanity.

In any case, biologists defend the idea of ​​evolution and natural selection. (For those who don’t know much about these subjects, I recommend watching the documentary about Charles Darwin). And neuroscientists have also argued that our brain has maintained stages of previous evolution, so we can speak of 3 brains!

The reptilian brain roughly corresponds to the back of our head, starting at the end of the medulla and including the cerebellum. This part of our brain, which resembles the brain of reptiles, is responsible for basic functions such as controlling the heartbeat, breathing, digestion, and simple movements such as raising and lowering an arm and maintaining body posture.

In addition to sustaining life (heart and breathing) and basic locomotion, the reptilian brain governs our most primitive emotions: fear, desire (for food and sex) and anger.

The second brain: the brain of the first mammals

The so-called brain of the first mammals corresponds to the telencephalon, a structure in which we find the hippocampus and the tonsils of the cerebellum. In a sense, part of these structures are already present in the brains of reptiles, but it was with the development of mammals that these areas expanded.

With the expansion of these functions, animals began to be able to predict more precisely who their enemies and friends were, to have a greater ability to seek and find food, and also a greater ability to keep memories.

In addition to greater instinctual dexterity (survival and reproduction), what was special about the second brain was its wide range of emotions. As mammals had to take care of their young much longer, and, in many cases, live in a group, emotions evolved from primitive anger, fear and desire to differentiated and complex emotions.

Only subtle emotions can explain the animal’s behavior of caring for its young for long periods of time and protecting and helping its own kind.

The third brain: the rational brain

According to biology and neuroscience scholars, the last step in the evolution of the brain took place about one hundred million years ago, with the emergence of the cerebral cortex. Contrary to what one might expect, the cerebral cortex or rational brain is not present only in human beings.

Intelligent beings like dolphins, whales, monkeys also have this last stage of brain evolution. However, as would be expected, it is man who has the most developed rational brain.

Some researchers call the rational brain the brains of higher mammals. Regardless of the name, the important thing is to know that it gives the person the ability to learn faster, which allows a better adaptation to the environment.

Adaptation is facilitated by the fact that, with a rational brain, it is possible to predict the consequences well in advance. With this, it becomes possible to deceive dangerous enemies, in addition to the ability to live in larger groups (like primates) and have a language for communication, as also happens with cetaceans.

Even more subtle emotions like compassion originate in the cerebral cortex, as neuroscience research indicates.

Our cortex is much larger in volume and ability than that of other mammals. With that, our emotions can be signified in feelings, that is, while emotion is just a bodily sensation (however complex it may be), we can transform this sensation into a greater, rational understanding, into a feeling.

Conclusion

To define the human being, we can use concepts from many areas. The definition of man as a rational being (zoon logikon) is very famous. The interesting thing about studying neuroscience and looking at the history of the evolution of our brain (or the three brains in our head) is that we can understand many behaviors that are not possible to be explained by reason alone.

How to explain the feeling of terrible fear at the sight of a cockroach? This is not rational behavior as a small animal is normally not dangerous. However, when we inform ourselves that we also have a primitive brain, responsible for fear, we will begin to understand that reason does not always dominate.

The same happens when the second brain is stronger than the cortex. A strong emotion such as being in love or sad can be much stronger than all the reasons to act.

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