On an incredibly simplistic level, you can think of depression as occurring when your cortex thinks an abstract thought and manages to convince the rest of the brain that this is as real as a physical stressor.

Almost always, genes are about potentials and vulnerabilities rather than about determinism.

Oxytocin is a Teflon hormone - bad news rolls off it.

There's the complex categorization of low warmth/high competence. This is the hostile stereotype of Asian Americans by white America, of Jews in Europe, of Indo-Pakistanis in East Africa, of Lebanese in West Africa, of ethnic Chinese in Indonesia, and of the rich by the poor most everywhere. It's the same low-high derogation: They're cold, greedy, clannish - -but, dang, they're sure good at making money and you should go to one who is a doctor if you're seriously sick.

What happened in the milliseconds before a behavior to cause it? That's in the neurobiological realm.

Perhaps most excitingly, we are uncovering the brain basis of our behaviors - normal, abnormal and in-between. We are mapping a neurobiology of what makes us us.

Until you appreciate something crucial - It is incredibly easy to manipulate us as to who counts as an Us, who as a Them.