Hi, Class! I'm coming to you live from the prefrontal cortex (see purple area on graphic) where neurons are buzzing and crackling excitedly over some new thoughts
I'm having. This is a great place: Anything goes and everything's conscious and in the open. The only thing to watch out for are the monsters from the subterranean
regions of the mysterious Freudian territory. These unconscious troglodytes can sneak up on you and work all kinds of irrational mischief before the prefrontal
security teams can discover and neutralize them.
There's a lot of processing going on up here. We receive almost hourly messages from the amygdala, which, like the Department of Homeland Security, sends out warnings of disasters that mostly never happen. Still these messages cause the release of a lot of chemicals that get us all charged up trying to prepare for the worst.
Sometimes this is a good thing but most of the time the warnings are exaggerated and the prefrontal neurons here have to work overtime to restore order with rational thought. When we can activate the thinking systems here, we shut down the amygdala. (Of course, when the amygdala is active, it is the prefrontal neurons that are shut down.) Sometimes the prefrontal areas are activated too late to prevent an over-reaction and we find our hearts racing and our palms sweating for nothing – belatedly the prefrontal cortex tells us the loud sound we heard was not a gun going off but a book falling harmlessly to the floor. The trick is to have some thinking neurons always on the alert, ready to evaluate and analyse any threat at the first indication of trouble – kind of like an early warning system.
I should mention as I'm looking out over the broad cortical plains that stretch from one side of the skull to the other (what a jungle of neurons!) that a lot of the ongoing activity is directed to addressing messages from classical conditioning and other unconscious sources. These inputs into consciousness are mostly beyond prefrontal control, but once allowed in, must be addressed. Unfortunately, we can't keep them out because they come from unconscious areas where we have neither access nor control. Since we can't control their entry, we just have to let them have their unthinking way and live with the consequences.
But I shouldn't be too hard on the unconscious systems; they do a lot of good and take much of the burden of running and protecting the body away from us. Geez! If every time the body stood up or increased its activity we had to think about how much to change breathing and heart rate and blood pressure, we wouldn't have time for anything else!
Plus doing automatic stuff is not very interesting or something prefrontal neurons are well-suited for. They're pretty elite cells and quite expensive neurologically – very few of our animal cousins can afford them. Non-human animals rely on cheaper, more primitive automatic systems. Assigning automatic tasks to prefrontal cortex is like making a CEO sweep floors and empty trash – a pretty expensive custodian!
Still, at times I wish my prefrontal cortex had more control over these systems. I would like on occasion to be able to turn off pain responses instead moaning and groaning over something I can't do anything about, and to stop worrying when it serves no purpose. The classical conditioning neurons (and other autonomic systems) can be pretty tyrannical in dragging us kicking and screaming into distasteful experiences and unwise behaviors that we'd be better off avoiding. Sometimes I don't like the preferences these unconscious processes give me and I need all my prefrontal resources to keep from doing something that I know I shouldn't.
But overall, I guess, these automatic processes have our best interests at heart. I just wish they were a little smarter, that's all. Hold on! – a message is coming in that I need to eat something. Gotta go!