lizard brain
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English
[edit]Noun
[edit]lizard brain (plural lizard brains)
- (anatomy, psychology) The most primitive part of the brain; the brain stem.
- (by extension) Any part of a person's psyche or personality dominated by instinct or impulse rather than rational thought.
- Synonyms: id, reptilian brain
- 2017 November, N. K. Jemisin, Mac Walters, chapter 8, in Mass Effect Andromeda: Initiation[1], 1st edition (Science Fiction), Titan Books, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 155:
- With her pistol drawn, she hurried down the ramp and into cover behind one of the landing pad’s walls, listening carefully. The hangar was as silent as—well, as a tomb. The temptation to take off her helmet was powerful, to rely on scents and sounds and instincts instead of equipment and sensors. Everything about this mess had her lizard-brain in overdrive. SAM-E’s warning about a hostile intent in the system, controlling life support and even the hangar bay doors, kept her from obeying that instinct.
- (by extension) Any part of a person's mind concerned with automatic, repetitive tasks rather than emotion.
- 2023 October 10, HarryBlank, “The Cruelest Fight”, in SCP Foundation[2], archived from the original on 31 August 2024:
- Which was good. If she kept her superego occupied with minor considerations, the lizard brain could keep planning routes and obscuring caches and examining half-melted human candles for the Markey equivalent of spoor without interference. She didn't want her emotional intelligence and creativity to be paying close attention when she found Michael Nass half-fused to a cave wall, drooling pink slime into the dust and talking portentous nonsense about Norte Chico burial rituals while his jellified skin sloughed off, considering whose fault it had been that he'd been at AAF-D when the sinners came marching in.