{"id":156,"date":"2026-06-08T02:29:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T06:29:14","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2026-08-05T12:24:21","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T12:24:21","slug":"do-sms-effect-behavior","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aboutyou.name\/?p=156","title":{"rendered":"Do Somatic Markers affect Behavior?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"6px;\"><span style=\"font-family: Verdana;\">As a part of the neocortex, the somato-sensory cortex processes all bodily sensations and creates a specific pattern of neural activity in one of two ways: <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><span style=\"6px;\"><span style=\"font-family: Verdana;\">The prefrontal cortex and the insular region direct the body to assume a certain state, which is then mapped by the somato-sensory cortex as a certain pattern of neural activity, or <\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"6px;\"><span style=\"font-family: Verdana;\">The somato-sensory cortex can then create a pattern of neural activity from a mapped (stored) memory that represents a previous emotional and bodily state of being. <\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p style=\"clear: both;\"><span style=\"6px;\"><span style=\"font-family: Verdana;\">A previous emotional and bodily state often arises in response to environmental cues that point to reward or punishment. Associated behaviors can include conformity, obedience and self-preservation.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"6px;\"><span style=\"font-family: Verdana;\">Behaviors arising from a previous state are often unconsciously experienced, and so may influence our reasoning and decision-making for better, or for worse. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"6px;\"><span style=\"font-family: Verdana;\">In the same way, somatic markers (patterns of neural activity) influence thoughts, sensations, and behavior in a covert manner. If they need to, they attract our attention via bodily sensations (such as an itch or pain signal), or via neural activity that triggers particular thoughts and feelings.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\"><span style=\"2px;\"><span style=\"font-family: Verdana;\"><a href=\"?p=157\"><span style=\"color: #ffd700;\"><strong>read<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-family: Verdana;\"><a href=\"?p=157\"><span style=\"2px;\"><span style=\"font-family: Verdana;\"><span style=\"color: #ffd700;\"><strong> more &#8230;<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" style=\"width: 285px; height: 193px;\" src=\"\/userfiles\/image\/Brain-muscle-A.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><br \/><strong><span style=\"color: #ffd700;\"><em><span style=\"2px;\"><span style=\"font-family: Verdana;\">&#8220;I never heard of anyone pulling<br \/>\na brain muscle while thinking.&#8217;<\/span><\/span><\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As a part of the neocortex, the somato-sensory cortex processes all bodily sensations and creates a specific pattern of neural activity in one of two ways: The prefrontal cortex and the insular region direct the body to assume a certain state, which is then mapped by the somato-sensory cortex as a certain pattern of neural&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2455,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"default","_kad_post_title":"default","_kad_post_layout":"default","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"default","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"default","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aboutyou.name\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aboutyou.name\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aboutyou.name\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aboutyou.name\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aboutyou.name\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=156"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/aboutyou.name\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9406,"href":"https:\/\/aboutyou.name\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156\/revisions\/9406"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aboutyou.name\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aboutyou.name\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aboutyou.name\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aboutyou.name\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}