Triune brain

Uncommon card · No. 162674

The triune brain was a once popular model of the evolution of the vertebrate forebrain and behavior, proposed by the American physician and neuroscientist Paul D. MacLean in the 1960s. The triune brain consists of the reptilian complex (basal ganglia), the paleomammalian complex (limbic system), and the neomammalian complex (neocortex), viewed each as independently conscious, and as structures sequentially added to the forebrain in the course of evolution. According to the model, the basal ganglia are in charge of primal instincts, the limbic system is in charge of emotions, and the neocortex is responsible for objective or rational thoughts. Since the 1970s, the concept of the triune brain has been subject to criticism in evolutionary and developmental neuroscience and is now regarded as a myth. Although it overlaps in some respects with contemporary understanding of the brain, the triune brain hypothesis was largely abandoned by comparative neuroscientists at the turn of the 21st century...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Lchunhori at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 2.5