Some of these areas are known to play a role in reasoning, but there was no increase in activity in the dorso-lateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC). The dlPFC is the main area for cool reasoning tasks.42 Whatever thinking partisans were doing, it was not the kind of objective weighing or calculating that the dlPFC is known for.43 Once Westen released them from the threat, the ventral striatum started humming—that’s one of the brain’s major reward centers. All animal brains are designed to create flashes of pleasure when the animal does something important for its survival, and small pulses of the
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