Published by: Ilchi Lee

The cerebral limbic system is the domain of emotions and appetites. Within the cerebral limbic system arises our need for food, appetite for sex, and various emotions such as joy, anger, grief, and love. Within the cerebral limbic system also lies the mechanism for controlling the five senses. With the rapid development of the neocortex in humans, the cerebral limbic system has decreased in relative size—it is comparatively less developed than that of animals such as dogs and cats. We have better pneumonic ability, but a dog can smell far better than we can. We can reason, but we cannot see the pupil dilation of a rodent from a hundred meters in the air, as an eagle can.

The cerebral limbic system and the neocortex have an interesting relationship. Imagine a child walking in front of a vegetable store who spies a delicious-looking apple. Prof Lee writes the cerebral limbic system will demand that the child grab and eat the apple. However, the neocortex, with its reasoning ability, will respond thus after checking how much is in the pocket, “We can’t eat it right now because we don’t have enough money to buy it.” The cerebral limbic system will then whine that it wants the apple right at this moment. But the neocortex will reply, “Wait till we get home and ask Mom for money to buy the apple. Just hold on awhile.”