Love Your Brain

What bet­ter way to cel­e­brate Valen­tines’ day than to accom­pa­ny Mar­i­an Dia­mond on her search for love and wis­dom in the brain? Dr. Dia­mond is Pro­fes­sor of Neu­ro­science and Anato­my at UC-Berke­ley  and one of the world’s fore­most researchers on neu­ro­plas­tic­ity and enrich­ment. In the 60s, her  pio­neer work demon­strat­ed the impact of phys­i­cal and intel­lec­tu­al stim­u­la­tion on brain functions.

In this arti­cle she tells us why it mat­ters to love our brains as well as where to look for love in the brain:

… if every­one under­stood what we know today about his or her body and worked to keep it fit, and every­one prac­ticed the gold­en rule, how much we could all enjoy, study, and main­tain our beau­ti­ful earth to its fullest extent.

But for all of this to come about, what is it that is respon­si­ble for under­stand­ing our bod­ies, prac­tic­ing the gold­en rule and enjoy­ing the beau­ties of this earth?  None oth­er than our brains.

[… ] Most of the con­scious com­po­nents of human love appear to be asso­ci­at­ed with the frontal lobe of the cere­bral hemi­spheres, the most high­ly evolved part of our brains.

Relat­ed articles:

• Lis­ten to an amaz­ing lec­ture by Mar­i­an Dia­mond on gen­er­al human anatomy