Rewire Your Brain: Think Your Way to a Better Life

prefrontal cortex
(PFC) 
gives us many of our most complex cognitive, behavioral, and emo-
tional capacities. The PFC enables you to develop and act on a moral 
system, because it allows you to set aside your needs and refl ect 
on the needs of others. The PFC is part of a system that provides 
you with the capacity for empathy. If your PFC is damaged, you are 
likely to engage in antisocial and impulsive behaviors or not engage 
in any purposeful behavior at all. 
One of the principal parts of the PFC is the
dorsolateral prefron-
tal cortex
(DLPFC).
Dorsal
means “ fi n ” or “ top, ” and
lateral
means 
“ side. ” The other signifi cant prefrontal area is called the
orbital fron-
tal cortex
(OFC), because it lies just behind the orbs of the eyes. 
The DLPFC is very involved in higher - order thinking, attention, 
and short - term memory (which is also called working memory because 
it processes what you are working on at any one time). You can usually 
hold something you ’ re working on in your mind for twenty to thirty 
seconds. The DLPFC is the last part of the brain to fully develop, and 
it is also the earliest to falter during the later years of life. This is what ’ s 
behind the phenomenon of walking purposely into a room and then 
forgetting what you intended to do there. The DLPFC is involved 
with complex problem solving, so it maintains rich connections with 
the hippocampus, which helps you to remember things for later. 
The OFC, in contrast, appears to have a closer relationship 
with the parts of the brain that process emotions, such as those 
generated by your amygdala. The OFC develops earlier in life and 
is closely associated with what is called the social brain. Without 
your OFC, you would be like the classic case of Phineas Gage. In an 
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6 Rew i r e
Yo u r
B r a i n
accident at work, a steel rod pierced Gage ’ s brain and skewered his 
OFC but left everything else in his brain intact. Gage retained his 
cognitive abilities but lost much of his ability to inhibit impulses. 
He had previously been a supervisor who was widely respected, but 
now he became unstable (in stark contrast to his previous emotional 
reserve), erratic, rude, and hard to get along with. Gage was eventu-
ally reduced to working in a circus freak show, and he died penniless 
in San Francisco twenty years after the injury. His skull is on display 
at Harvard Medical School. 
Highly infl uenced by bonding, the OFC thrives on close relation-
ships. If those relationships are trusting and supportive, the OFC 
becomes more capable of regulating your emotions. In contrast to 
the DLPFC, the OFC does not falter much in old age. Older adults 
remember faces as well as younger adults do. 
Finally, there are differences between the left and the right pre-
frontal cortex. The right PFC helps to develop foresight and to 
get the gist of what ’ s happening in a given situation. It helps you 
to make plans, stay on course toward your overall goal, and under-
stand metaphor. If someone says, “ Michael Phelps is a fi sh, ” it ’ s your 
right PFC that enables you to understand what this person is really 
saying about the Olympic swimmer. Your left PFC, in contrast, 
helps you to focus on the details of individual events, like how many 
points were scored in the second half of a football game.
Neurons and Their Messengers 
Within all these lobes, hemispheres, and modules are a hundred 
billion neurons waiting to be used. They are highly social; if they 
weren ’ t used by working with neighboring neurons, they would die. 
Each neuron is capable of maintaining connections with about ten 
thousand other neurons. These connections change as you learn 
things, such as a new tennis swing, a new language, or the layout of 
a new supermarket. 
Neurons function partly on chemistry and partly on the electrical 
fi ring of impulses in an on - and - off manner. Neurons communicate 
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F i r i n g t h e R i g h t C e l l s To g e t h e r
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with one another by sending chemical messengers called