The Neuroscience of Psychotherapy: Healing the Social Brain (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology)

by Louis Cozolino

When we talk of the frontal cortex, amygdala, or hippocampus, we are literally talking about large numbers of individual neurons organized to perform a set of functions. The neurons within these systems need to be able to organize and reorganize in such a way as to allow us to learn, remember, and act as we adjust to different situations. Because each neuron is limited to either firing or not firing, the diverse capabilities of the nervous system come from the complex interaction of individual neuronal signals. A simplistic analogy is an old-fashioned billboard consisting of rows and columns of thousands of light bulbs. Although each individual bulb is limited to being either on or off, the pattern created by these lights can spell out words, form images, and through precise timing, create the illusion of movement. In a similar fashion, patterns of neural firing come to represent specific information within the brain and throughout the nervous system.