This is Your Brain on Lust. Any Questions?






Brain 101

So here’s a simple description of how the brain works:



However, the child’s mom corrects him and says, “No honey, that is a cat.” In response, the child’s brain will develop a new neural pathway for this new category of furry, four-legged creature. And later on, when he learns there are different types of cats, he will strengthen his existing neural pathway for cats, but also create new ones as well.

What is especially interesting about neural pathways is they can be strengthened or weakened. The more you use certain neural pathways, the stronger they become, whereas others weaken with lack of use. Scientists believe this is how we forget things. It’s not that the information is no longer there, as if it falls out of our brains. Instead, the connections to that information have been so weakened by lack of use that we can no longer access it.

Why does this matter to you?

The brain is essentially plastic. It is constantly being molded by what you put into it. That is an exciting and encouraging aspect of the brain’s design—it means we can change and grow!—but as you can see from the above description of the child, our past experiences also inform our future ones. The neural pathways that already exist in the brain will direct how we process future experiences. Sure, we can form new neural pathways, but the existing neural pathways will be our go-to, at least at first.

In the same way a child who owns a dog may only have one category—dogs—for ALL furry, four-legged creatures, and mistakenly applies that category too generally, we can do the same. And I’m afraid we do.

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Sharon Hodde Miller
Sharon Hodde Miller lives in the Chicago area, where she is pursuing a doctorate at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. She is a regular contributor to Christianity Today's blog for women, Her.meneutics, and you can read more of her writing at her own blog, Sharon is married to Ike, and is the proud mother of a new son.