I had never planned to become a savanna baboon when I grew up; instead, I had always assumed I would become a mountain gorilla.

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

Digestion is quickly shut down during stress…The parasympathetic nervous system, perfect for all that calm, vegetative physiology, normally mediates the actions of digestion. Along comes stress: turn off parasympathetic, turn on the sympathetic, and forget about digestion.

It's great to have a buff frontal cortex to do that harder thing - for example, help a person in need rather buy some useless, shiny gee-gaw.

I had never planned to become a savanna baboon when I grew up; instead, I had always assumed I would become a mountain gorilla.

The fascinating thing about our best and worst behaviors isn't the behavior itself - the brain tells the muscles to do something or other - big deal. It's the meaning of the behavior.

Importantly, rather than promoting aggression, testosterone promotes whatever is needed to maintain status when challenged.