Periodically, I have given presentations to a group discussing various aspects of medications and drugs and the affect that they have on the human brain.  As we have heard many times, the human brain is an incredibly complex organ.  Continued research has contributed to improving and understanding some of the things the brain does.

     To begin with in the bottom of the human brain, various involuntary special needs are dealt with.  These include maintaining your body temperature, maintaining your blood pressure, maintaining your pulse, making sure that you breath when you are sleep or awake, digesting your food, and regulating a huge number of hormones such as the thyroid and the adrenal gland, etc. etc.  Magnificently, all of these functions are done for the individual.  They are not something that you have to “think” about.  One of the puzzles that has always fascinated me, is why drugs have so little effect upon these functions.  A person can drink himself or herself silly, take Valium until they are asleep or use antidepressants and their blood pressure is still maintained, their body temperature is still maintained, their hormonal system still works, etc. etc.  Thus the involuntary portion of the human brain seems to be unaffected by most drugs.

     However, the bulk of the human brain is made up of what is called the cerebral cortex.  This is made up of four major lobes.  The occipital cortex is on the back of the brain and it is developed exclusively to interrupting what your eyes see.  It communicates with various other parts of the brain to establish “hand-eye coordination”, make you dodge when something is about to hit you and help you thread a needle.

     The temporal lobes are located just inside of the ears on both sides and are devoted primary to balance and hearing.  This part of the brain lets you turn to where a voice is coming from, interrupts language, and feed information regarding music to other parts of the brain so you can decide whether you like it or not.

     The parietal lobe is located over the top of the head and is devoted to the motor function of your body.  This part of your brain makes your arms and legs and back and neck and all of the other musculature in your body move in a coordinated meaningful way.  Surprisingly, most of the parietal cortex is completely silent and has no function that we have identified to this time.  This gives me hope that perhaps we can involve a use for this area in the future and humans really evolve into something much better than what we are now.

     The frontal lobes are located immediately behind the forehead and this is where you live.  The frontal lobes create your personality and are the seat of this thing we call “self”.  The self decides what you are going to do; it is the seed of reasoning power, analytical power, and decision-making.  This is where the conscious mind really resides.

     The question posed in the title above, comes from a presentation that I once gave to a group of alcoholics who were in a recovery program.  I asked them the question, “What does your conscious mind spend of it’s time doing?”  There were all kinds of smart alecky answers but no one came up with the correct answer to that question.  The real answer is, “It spends most of its time what not to do.”  Specifically, it inhibits behaviors that might be socially unacceptably, patently dangerous and or pointless.

     To demonstrate to this concept, imagine that you are sitting in a room with various other people carrying on a conversation or perhaps having a meal.  Imagine that a stray dog, very hungry and happy to see everyone, comes prancing into the room.  The dog would sniff various parts of the room, perhaps some parts of the people.  It might lift its leg and urinate on the nearest chair.  The dog might jump in somebody’s lap or even up on the table and help itself to what is available.  Note the dog is uninhibited in its behavior.  If someone tried to interfere with the dog’s activity, the person might get bitten.  Considering all of the people in the room, I doubt if any of them are acting in the same way that this uninhibited dog is.  In other words, the people are inhibited in their behaviors.  The dog is not.  Note the dog’s frontal lobes aren’t very big compared to those of the people

     Now picture another situation.  Imagine you are in a bar or someone has had a substantial amount of alcoholic beverage to drink.  Alcohol has a number of effects decreasing the function of the human brain but the earliest and most prominent change is in the frontal lobe where behavior changes.  Where as a sober person might be slow to start an argument, the person who is slightly inebriated is often quick to take offense or exception to what someone else might say or do.  Whereas the sober person is unlikely to become physical in an altercation, and an adequately inebriated individual believes that they can pick a fight and win against a person far superior physically.  Whereas most sober people drive safely, an inebriated person believes that they can drive faster, farther, better, higher and deeper and alcohol is responsible for 25,000 deaths a year from automobile accidents alone.  In other words, alcohol turns off the frontal lobes and things that you would never do in a sober state come easily when the person is intoxicated.  To reiterate, your conscious mind spends most of time telling you what not to do.  It protects you from making impulsive bad choices, performing dangerous acts, and behaving a socially unacceptable way.

     This is not to say that alcohol is evil or bad for you or unhealthy.  In fact people that have two alcoholic beverages per day on the average live longer than people who don’t drink at all.  Sometimes uninhibiting, shy person allows for a much more enjoyable social situation.  Sometimes the paralysis of conflict that prevents any action to be helped with a product such as Valium which decreases the function of the frontal lobe, decreases the worry and rumination that the person is going through and allows them rest if not ability to make a decision.

     As a last example of the answer to the above question, ask yourself what is the difference between a small child, a young child, a teenager and an adult.  How do they behave differently?  How inhibited is an adult's behavior as their frontal lobes develop as compared to the small child?