Sitting just behind your forehead, your prefrontal cortex is the seat of higher-order reasoning, judgment, and decision making. Like other parts of your brain, it is divided in two, with a right and left side. When you experience negative feelings like fear, anxiety, and disgust, your brain shows increased activity on the right side. When you experience positive feelings like amusement, hope, and love, your brain shows increased activity on the left side. Researchers have termed this the “valence hypothesis,” suggesting that people who have more activity on the right side (“cortical righties”)
...more
