The Neuroscience of Wisdom

The title of this post is identical to the title of a chapter in a book titled Wiser by Dilip Jeste, MD with Scott LaFee, because this post is based on that chapter. The prefrontal cortex (PFC) is where prosocial attitudes and behaviors reside. These attitudes and behaviors represent the innate belief and understanding that we all strive for the common good; that when we help others, we help ourselves; that we all seek something bigger and better. Empathy and altruism are prosocial attitudes. They have deep biological roots. When we watch, smiling, as a child joyously blows out candles on a birthday cake, or choke back a sob during a poignant scene in a movie, mirror neurons in our PFC are firing in the same patterns as those in the person we are watching. People with greater unconscious somatic mimicry have higher ratings of self-reported altruism. When they say they feel your pain, they really do—at least in their head.

Also located in the PFC and in the nearby neighborhoods of the anterior cingulate cortex, posterior superior temporal sulcus, and temporoparietal junction is our second stop: the homes of social decision-making and pragmatic knowledge of life. These phrases fundamentally describe what each of us knows about ourselves, about others, and about how to deal with life’s ever changing conditions and problems. These are the facts we use to get along while getting ahead, like understanding implicitly that a crying child or grieving widow need comfort and consolation, not a sharp rebuke or disdainful snort.

In the PFC and nearby in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex lives the third major component of wisdom: emotional regulation or homeostasis, meaning balance. Our bodies and every aspect of the universe—seek homeostasis, a relentless drive toward stability. Our physical bodies do this constantly, every moment, tweaking internal conditions to achieve a desire equilibrium: sweating when we’re too hot, shivering when we’re too cold, signaling thirst or hunger when we need water or food.

It is no different psychologically. There is no wisdom in instability. If you’re always angry or consumed by negative emotions, you cannot behave wisely. Buddhaghosa. a fifth-century commentator, once wrote that holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the notion of throwing it at someone else. You’re the one who’s going to get burned. The yin and yang of emotion and cognition, of feeling and thinking, must be balanced. There are good reasons and occasional value toward being angry or envious, but emotions must be skillfully managed to a wise purpose and end, LIkewise, it’s nonsensical to be perpetually giddy or blindly optimistic.

A specific section of the PFC called the medial prefrontal cortex along with the posterior cingulate, precuneus, and inferior parietal lobe are the regions of the brain where we find the fourth major component of wisdom: reflection and self-understanding. Reflection—the fixing of thoughts on a particular topic with careful consideration—is foundational to wisdom. It’s hard to imagine our popular archetypes of wisdom, people like King Solomon, Abraham Lincoln, Elizabeth I, or Martin Luther King Jr., acting without thinking, without weighing consequences. You can see the ravages of hard thought and hard decisions in the face of Lincoln and hear them in the emotionally charged but reasoned language and exhortations of King. Rash wisdom is an oxymoron.

In the PFC and tucked just beneath in the anterior cingulate cortex is the place where awareness of life’s uncertainties resides, where we learn and accept new thoughts and beliefs based on new knowledge, experience, insights, where we home our tolerance and acceptance of others. There can be no empathy, compassion, connection, or bonding without tolerance. Tolerance of diverse or even contrarian views is no less important to wisdom than self-reflection or prosocial attitudes. It is the ability and willingness to look at life, people, and situations from multiple perspectives without disdain or immediate condemnation. The world is not black and white, but multihued, like your brain. There may be right way and a wrong way to go, but you won’t necessarily know which path is correct if you haven’t considered the options.

Also in the PFC, along with the anterior cingulate cortex and orbitofrontal cortex lies our last stop: the ability to behave and act despite acknowledgment that life is uncertain and ambiguous. Sometimes there is no right way to go. There are always limits to knowledge.’Everybody is ignorant,’ said will Rogers, ‘only on different subjects. The fact that we cannot know everything, that we cannot foretell our futures, can be profoundly unsettling. For every door that closes, another may open, but what if it’s an elevator shaft? Sometimes we choose not to look before we leap or hope we’ll grow wings on the way down.

In each hemisphere of the brain, folded within the lateral sulcus is a portion of the cerebral cortex called the insula. We have two insula, one in each hemisphere. They are involved in consciousness and diverse functions linked to homeostasis.

Another part of the brain is the hippocampus, which is a pair of small seahorse-shaped structures located in the medial temporal lobe, deep within the brain. The hipocampi are primarily known for their roles in transferring information from short-term memory to long-term memory and for long term memory and spatial navigation. The hippocampi work pulling out or pulling together distant or disparate memories. This is indispensable to wise thinking and wise behavior.

Wisdom helps us cope. Wisdom means being aware that nothing in life is guaranteed, and that means we must use what time we have as wisely as we can.