Page 44 - Advanced Biblical Counseling Student Textbook

sounds and textures, and control your emotions. It also coordinates voluntary movement. If you
injured your cerebellum or drugged it with alcohol, you would have trouble walking, keeping your
balance, or shaking hands. The cerebellum also helps process and store memories for things we cannot
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consciously recall, such as why we link the sound of thunder to a flash of lightning. (photo from:
www.blogmicroscopeworld.com)

The Limbic System
We’ve traveled through the brain’s oldest parts, but we’ve not yet reached its highest regions, the
cerebral hemispheres (the two halves of the brain). In between the oldest and newest brain areas lies
the limbic system. This system contains the amygdala, the hypothalamus, and the hippocampus. The
hippocampus processes conscious memories. Animals or humans who lose their hippocampus to
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surgery or injury also lose their ability to form new memories of facts and events.
Amygdala

Research has linked the amygdala – two lima-bean-sized neural clusters in the limbic system – to
aggression and fear. In 1939, researchers surgically removed a rhesus monkeys amygdala, turning the
normally ill-tempered animal into the most mellow of creatures. Researchers confirm the amygdala’s
role in emotions such as rage and fear. Still, a critical thinker would be careful here. When we feel or act
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in aggressive and fearful ways, there is neural activity in all levels of our brain, not just the amygdala.

66 Myers, 2009
67 Ibid.
68 Ibid.

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