Humans live in a society. We are exposed to other people, have relationships with them, have families and friends. But, why is this so? Louis Cozolino, in his book Neuroscience of Human Relationships states that we start with the assumption that social brains evolved through natural selection. Being social increases survival. I chose an animal that could be compared to humans in terms survival and social skills, as well as our reactions to danger. This is a meerkat. In the wild, meerkats can be described as being similar to humans in social behavior.
Meerkats live in large groups, with up to 40 other animals. The “matriarchal”, or matriarchal, society in which the oldest male is the leader, is also their home. They groom each other to show their affection. They are responsible for caring for the female dominant’s pups and protecting their flock from danger. Meercats are social animals and can share many of our emotions. They are able to feel anger, confusion and fear. Cambridge University biologists study meerkats for over 10 years. Katherine McAuliffe and Alex Thornton, authors of the July 14 Science paper that describes how meerkats teach young their children to deal with the scorpions. Dr. Thornton and McAuliffe found that meerkats can teach younger members of the group hunting methods. Their focus was on how young meerkats should learn to eat scorpions. Baby meerkats can be too young to hunt scorpions, so older meerkars may give them dead scorpions. It was interesting to discover that the meerkats with live scorpions learnt faster than the ones without. Meerkats have a reputation for their excellent guarding abilities. The guards are there to protect the group while they explore the area or search for food. The guard will sound an alarm if it senses danger. All meerkats can understand. The guard will direct all meerkats to run until danger passes. Not only do Meerkats experience panic attacks, but they also face anxiety. Let’s see how this compares to human behavior. Our lives are constantly under pressure. We worry about our grades, how we will be punctual, and what we’ll look like. Teenagers feel the pressure to keep themselves active or to look good. Children are more anxious when they’re exposed to social situations.
All this causes us to feel anxious. Anxiety can be defined as a concern for too many things. What happens when we experience anxiety or panic? We adopt a “Meerkat mind” which is a way of dealing with fear and making sure we do not get hurt. This behavior was used to study how to train the “meerkat brain” for therapy of anxiety in children. This model is called “The Meerkat Brain Model”. Paul MacLean’s 1960’s brain theory was 3-part. It is known as the “triune brain”. Jane Evans, an sociologist, applied it to children in violent environments during her research.
Part one is the survival brain. This is the primitive Brain. It’s responsible for basic survival functions. It is responsible for protecting our lives and can automatically respond to danger. This brain area has been described as the meerkat’s brain.
The “emotional brain”, which includes the hippocampus, amygdala, and hypothalamus, is part two. It is especially focused on memories. They are used to retrieve emotions, such as fear, anger, love and nurture, love and jealousy, and to lay them down. Elephant has represented this part.
The New Cortex is part three. It’s our “smart” mind. It helps us to think rationally, make decisions, delay gratification and plan for the future. The three animals Meerkats, Monkey and Elephant have been correlated with each component of the triune. This therapy is focused on training our meerkats brain to maintain a balanced relationship with the three components of our brain. The following is an illustration of this model:
Meerkat Brain
Part One – Because Meerkats are always on the lookout for danger, their Meerkat brain represents the primitive, reptilian brain. It raises the alarm when they are in danger.
Part two — The Elephant brain, also known as the mammalian/limbic emotional memory brain, is what elephants remember.
Part Three — Monkey brains represent the intelligent brain (neocortex). Even though meerkats’ brains cannot be studied biologically, their behavior can be compared to human behavior and used to help us understand anxiety disorders.
