Dr. Curtis Peterson breaks down the brain’s most basic, evolutionarily shared structures, explaining how the brainstem supports life functions and how the limbic system drives emotions and rapid responses.The episode highlights key limbic parts—the amygdala (fear/threat), hippocampus (emotional memory consolidation and identity), hypothalamus (hunger, thirst, sex), thalamus (sensory relay), and cingulate gyrus (empathy and moral reasoning)—and discusses effects like the positivity bias and dementia-related identity loss.