Oh this is one of my favorite territories. Seeing "amygdalae"
just gave me a happy chill. Never used the plural form. I call
it the "push from the amygdala". One of my favorite "brain
circuits" (to stick with the computer/brain metaphor, which is
hard to avoid using 'cause it's handy) - is the way the amygdala
can give a stronger 'push' to the prefrontal cortex than the
very weak way the prefrontal cortex can give back to the
amygdala. Hence: your reasoning is driven by emotion, to put it
simply. You can use your reasoning to control your emotion but
the connection is ... wispier and takes training to strengthen
the connection. That's my simplified take on it. Somewhere in my
files I have the relative speeds (more data metaphors) for the
amygdala --> prefrontal cortex vs the prefrontal cortex -->
amydala. It's a striking difference and explains a lot for me.
