The amygdala is key to how we learn what to fear. When it detects a threat, it activates our fight-or-flight system to either runaway or fight the threat. Sometimes this is maladaptive in today’s stressful world. However, more recent research has found that the amygdala is not just about fear and may also help us label positive emotions when we are rewarded. Additionally, emerging research has also examined its links to social interaction, aggression and even sexual orientation. There is still so much to learn.

We experience emotions everyday. Some might argue that it is what drives us to do what we do. But what are emotions? Several modern theories of emotion have been suggested but at core set of ideas has stood the test of time. Emotions are thought to be important to our survival, involve both the mind and body and are dependent on our thoughts and how we appraise our world. Learn more here.

Executive function is like the orchestra of your brain’s orchestra. When things need to be controlled, the prefrontal cortex part of our brain is the one to coordinate and control what happens. We use this for paying attention, switching tasks, planning, problem solving and remembering things in the short term. Here are some tests you can do to see how your executive function is performing.

When we perceive an object, our brains perceive a single option from all our senses. We can demonstrate this through experiments and we can also see what happens when brain damage occurs and association does not occur. While we know this happens, researchers cannot fully explain how this happens.

Movement is almost essential to mostly everything we do in life. Simple tasks such as reaching out and picking up a glass of water actually involve very complicated processes in our brain. We need to know where the glass is, where we are, plan to reach for the glass, assess the weight of the glass, reach out and grab it and balance the water as the glass moves. The motor cortex does all this!