Can Your Beliefs Impact Your Health and Well-Being?

The Chicago Social Brain Network

People have many sources of information, knowledge, and understanding. We consider the most common of these to be empirically acquired—learned facts, relations, associations, and perceptual and motor skills. Such learned associations serve as powerful determinants of thought and behavior. But other sources of information and knowledge also affect our interaction with the environment, including reflex-like (constitutionally endowed) circuits that are independent of explicit learning. Examples include central networks for pain withdrawal, hunger circuits for the ingestion of essential nutrients, social affiliation networks, and neural systems that promote maternal ...