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The prefrontal cortex is my favorite part of the brain for two reasons. One – it’s the most fun part to say and two – in my opinion, it’s responsible for most of the cool stuff.

Covering the front part of the frontal lobe, the prefrontal cortex is responsible for a long list of imperative human functioning abilities psychologically known as your “executive functions”.

Executive functions include the ability to:

  • differentiate between conflicting thoughts

  • determine good and bad / better and best / same and different

  • anticipate future consequences of current activities

  • work toward a defined goal

  • predict potential outcomes

  • have realistic expectations based on actions

  • socially control yourself (suppress urges that could lead to socially unacceptable outcomes)

  • express your personality

  • make decisions

  • regulate attention + distraction

  • control impulses

  • regulate emotions

If you boil all of these functions down to their common denominator, you’ll recognize that the basic activity of the prefrontal cortex is the orchestration of thoughts/actions in accordance with internal goals. To me, I read that sentence and I see: MY PREFRONTAL CORTEX IS RESPONSIBLE FOR MATCHING THE ME I WANT TO BE UP WITH THE ME THAT I AM. And that is something I absolutely want.

Ok guys, that’s it for this post. I just wanted to share the basics of the prefrontal cortex so we can all geek out over it. Next week for part 2 of the prefrontal cortex series, I’m gonna be sharing a post with some ideas on how to strengthen your prefrontal cortex.

Looking forward to your thoughts,

JM

LINKS:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5-Hdl0Z3VA – prefrontal cortex in 60 seconds

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prefrontal_cortex – prefrontal cortex wikipedia page

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