The more neuroscience I learn, the more I am horrified I am. We have specialised neural circuitry to find certain acts to be repugnant, even though from a purely ethical standpoint they may be fine. We have lots of wiring to pick up on hostility, and we have lots of wiring to view people as “us” or “them”. There’s been articles recently on how people become unable to do maths or read graphs if they’re depicting data which goes against one’s political beliefs. Far too many of our thoughts seem to be automatic rationalisation of what our limbic system is telling us, rather than honest-to-goodness rational and ethic thought.

A huge chunk of our mental health (happiness, loneliness, bipolar, depression risk) has genetic influences. Environmental influences (eg, you were in a Romanian orphanage), can result in marked neurological differences (lower amounts of white and grey matter).

My favourite parts of the brain—responsible for memory (the hippocampus) and executive function (the frontal cortex)—are the parts most easily damaged, and atrophy the most quickly. It’s worse—in some cases much worse—if you’re stressed. Congratulations if you’re 25; your executive function only goes downhill from here.

On the upside, if you’re questioning and re-examining your own ethics and behaviour, if you’re working and progressing towards being more compassionate and caring, and if you’re somehow able to convince others to do the same, then I’m seriously proud of you right now; because your neurobiology makes that a challenging task indeed.