If you are sitting somewhere just chilling out, not a cafe in the world then that’s great. Nothing to worry about. This state means your mental guard dog is resting. She may look like she’s asleep and not paying any attention but she is always on and always there to give you a heads-up when something changes for the better or for the worst. This guard dog is called Amy. Her full name is Amygdala from the Greek meaning almond and she sits in the middle of your brain on the lookout.

As we humans are bilaterally symmetrical we actually have two almond like structures deep within our brains but to make things easier we refer to them as one as each one does the same job for its half of the body and brain (the brain itself is nearly bilaterally symmetrical) which is to take in information from sensory systems and check the information before passing when on to the higher parts of the brain – the cortex that processes that stimuli.

The problem with Amy is that she doesn’t see or hear or feel too well. Tends to react first. Barks at things just in case. But Amy is not alone but has friends to help.

First off there is the Notorious BLA or bilateral amygdala. He knows a few things about what we should be looking out for that we have seen or been told about before. If there is something that Amy should be aware of that we have leant to be aware of then BLA is there. Amy has a two built in fears or innate phobias that come with the vast majority of humans (that’s right – only two) and these are 1) fear of falling and 2) loud noises. Everything else that we fear is learnt be that snakes, spiders or cuddly bears. For these learnt fears it’s the BLA passing on the info to Amy to super charge the body for a response.

The other helper in this awesome awareness activation is the Insular Cortex, or Insula or even Insula lobe. I’ll call him Inc. Think of Inc as your posh neighbour who isn’t alert like AmyG but is super posh, loves brands and nice things, not a great fan of trying new things (Inc also has other skills which I’ll get to later but let’s keep this simple).

The Inc looks out for things that are not appropriate in two super cool ways.

• 1. Environmental disgust – Inc picks up on odours and David tastes that make you split out food or turn away from a nasty smell for example the sulphur smell in rotten eggs will make you not want to eat then.
• 2. Social disgust – Inc is the master of social behaviour and will alert you to inappropriate social or moral behaviour to keep you alive and part of the group. Social disgust is complex as it involves emotions like revenge and feelings of in fairness that are found in social animals. To make it more complicated Inc is also involved in cultural disgust that are not logical. How do you feel about drinking out of a super clean toilet shaped vessel? Or wearing the clothes of someone you don’t like like a sports top of another team.

The third person to know is PeriG. To give her her full title periaqueductal gray (PAG) or, posher Central Gray . Peri is someone you need but really don’t like as she is all about forthcoming pain – pain that has not arrived but might and it’s gonna hurt but fear not she is here to help bring the pain as it is through her conversations with AmyG that pain is regulated. When pain could be incoming the PAG let’s the AmyG know and she in turn prepares the body via the autonomic and somatic nervous systems depending on the cognition/awareness of the pain.

PAG also helps to moderate the pain when it does arrive. This doesn’t mean there is no pain – far from it- break a bone and that’s going to really hurt but in recovery the PAG will produce that dull, annoying pain so that you rest that particular part of you.

As the PAG is the centre of pain it’s also the place where analgesic or pain suppression drugs work through. It’s the same pathway that drug addiction works for the likes of heroine, fentanyl, and morphine as opioid drugs. Again I’ll look at pain and emotion later.

The next to look at is how AmyG helps her friends by passing on messages to provide more detail to what is going on.