The deep limbic system

The deep limbic system is also intimately involved in bonding and so­cial connectedness. It influences how you connect with other people on a social level; your ability to do this successfully in turn influences your moods. When we are bonded to people in a positive way, we feel better about our lives and ourselves. This capacity to bond then plays a significant role in the tone and quality of our moods.

The deep limbic system, especially the hypothalamus at the base of the brain, is responsible for translating our emotional state into physical feelings of relaxation or tension. The front half of the hypothalamus sends calming signals to the body through the parasympathetic nervous system. The back half of the hypothalamus sends stimulating or fear signals to the body through the sympathetic nervous system. The back half of the hypothalamus, when stimulated, is responsible for the fight-or-flight response. This "hard­wired response" happens immediately upon activation, such as seeing or ex­periencing an emotional or physical threat. The heart beats faster, breathing rate and blood pressure increase, the hands and feet become cooler to divert blood from the extremities to the big muscles (to fight or run away), and the pupils dilate (to see better). This "deep limbic" translation of emotion is powerful and immediate. It happens with overt physical threats as well as with more covert emotional threats. This part of the brain is intimately connected with the prefrontal cortex and seems to act as a switching station between running on emotion (the deep limbic system) and rational thought and prob­lem solving with our cortex. When the limbic system is turned on, emotions tend to take over. When it is cooled down, more activation is possible in the cortex. Current research on depression indicates increased deep limbic sys­tem activity and shutdown in the prefrontal cortex, especially on the left side.
Do you know people who see every situation in a bad light? That actu­ally can be a deep limbic system problem because, as mentioned, this system tends to set our emotional filter, and when it is working too hard the filter is colored with negativity. One person can walk away from an interaction that ten others would label positive, but which he or she considers negative. Because the deep limbic system affects motivation, people sometimes de­velop an "I don't care" attitude about life and work. They feel hopeless ibout the outcome, don't have the energy to care, and have little willpower in fellow through with tasks.



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