The Brain Functions

The Third Theatre

Movement, memory, emotion, language and the social brain are all affected by differences between the brain's hemispheres. These processes directly influence the moment-by-moment experience of life yet are relatively slow to adapt.

The brain functions both contribute to conscious experience and are gradually molded by it. The neural networks modify their connectivity as internal and external environments feed back to them, altering long-term memory, arousal, feelings, reactivity, rhythm, timing, motivation, emotional liability and a host of other traits as we go through life.

Like the other theatres the third can create its own challenges, many of which are far too complex for today's pharmacological and psychological treatments. For example a developmental deficit in motor coordination in the cerebellum can impair attention, mood, reasoning, language, and even the ability to approach people in social situations; we currently have no drug or talk therapies that can correct the problem and we might as well be honest about it. Similarly, abnormalities in the language centres of the brain may alter not only how people experience emotional states but how they communicate those states to spouses, supervisors or therapists.

Any such problems will naturally be compounded by faulty information flowing down from the first two theatres. While dyslexics are often quite aware that their reading abilities are impaired, "social dyslexics" may blunder through life with no clue that they are lacking interpersonal skills. Psychiatrists miss the clues just as often because the source is frequently faulty visual perception or a lack of social rhythm owing to poor motor coordination.

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Revised: June 12, 2006 .