Quotes About Physiology

The explains why basal levels of testosterone have little to do with subsequent aggression, and why increases in testosterone due to puberty, sexual stimulation, or the start of mating season don't increase aggression either.

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when we get into a physiological uproar and activate the stress-response for no reason at all, or over something we cannot do anything about, we call it things like "anxiety," "neurosis," "paranoia," or "needless hostility." Thus, the stress-response can be mobilized not only in response to physical or psychological insults, but also in expectation of them.

If their heart rate increases a lot (a peripheral indicator of anxious, amygdaloid arousal), they are unlikely to act prosocially in the situation. The prosocial ones are those whose heart rates decrease; they can hear the sound of someone else's need instead of the distressed pounding in their own chests.fn9,48

A critical realization roared through the research community: the physiological stress-response can be modulated by psychological factors. Two identical stressors with the same extent of allostatic disruption can be perceived, can be appraised differently, and the whole show changes from there.

For the vast majority of beasts on this planet, stress is about a short-term crisis, after which it's either over with or you're over with. When we sit around and worry about stressful things, we turn on the same physiological responses—but they are potentially a disaster when provoked chronically

A large body of evidence suggests that stress-related disease emerges, predominantly, out of the fact that we so often activate a physiological system that has evolved for responding to acute physical emergencies, but we turn it on for months on end, worrying about mortgages, relationships, and promotions.

when women are ovulating, their fusiform face areas respond more to faces, with the ("emotional") vmPFCs responding more to men's faces in particular.

While this neurobiology is mighty impressive, the brain is not where a behavior 'begins'. It's merely the final common pathway by which all the factors in the chapters to come converge and create behavior.

Health has its science, as well as disease.

My task was to show the psychologists that it is possible to apply physiological knowledge to the phenomena of psychical life.

DIAPHRAGM, n. A muscular partition separating disorders of the chest from disorders of the bowels.

Scientific physiology has the task of determining the functions of the animal body and deriving them as a necessary consequence from its elementary conditions.

The zoologist is delighted by the differences between animals, whereas the physiologist would like all animals to work in fundamentally the same way.

Smile if it kills you. The physiology of smiling diffuses a lot of anger and angst. It makes your body and soul feel better.

Food is all those substances which, submitted to the action of the stomach, can be assimilated or changed into life by digestion, and can thus repair the losses which the human body suffers through the act of living. —The Physiology of Taste, Brillat-Savarin

A good communicator affects our physiology. The power of voice can entrance us even induce or remove pain.

The average human has one breast and one testicle.

Nadie vive una emoción nada más que en su «corazón», o en su «mente». En cambio, la persona vive la emoción como reacciones químicas en el cuerpo y el cerebro. Estas reacciones químicas ocurren tanto a nivel de los órganos, estómago, corazón, grandes músculos y demás, como a nivel celular.

The brain is the hungriest organ in the body, with a metabolic rate sixteen times that of muscle tissue per unit weight. In modern humans, it accounts for 20 to 25 percent of an adult's energy needs.

Incidentally because the gastrointestinal track is metabolically greedy any reduction in its size would have freed up energy for other demands, such as those of a bigger brain.

Physiology and psychology cover, between them, the field of vital phenomena; they deal with the facts of life at large, and in particular with the facts of human life.

Chemistry, in its application to animals and vegetables. Endeavours jointly with physiology to enlighten us respecting the mysterious processes and sources of organic life.

Joy and serenity are not slavishly tied to our physiology. We are not programmed neurons over which we have no control. We are collaborators in the generation of our thoughts and emotions.