Everything is Possible for Her who Believes

Sharon Jaynes 

 

Everything is possible for him who believes, (Mark 9:23 NIV).

Once, a distraught father had an unruly son with multiple physical and emotional problems. Many people even said the boy was possessed by a demon. The dad had tried everything, but the boy continued to demonstrate anti-social behavior: throwing himself in the fire and then in water.

That sort of behavior, on top of frequent seizures, rolling on the ground, foaming at the mouth, and an inability to talk, made the dad desperate to find a solution. He even took the boy to some faith healers who were traveling through his hometown. But nothing seemed to work.

Brain size linked to social network

A study has found that the brain structure called the amygdala, involved with emotions, may predict a person's number and richness of relationships.

The size of your amygdala, an almond-shaped portion of the brain involved in emotions, may be as strong a marker for having rich and varied social relationships as how many "friends" you have on Facebook, researchers say.

Scientists report in the 26 December online edition of Nature Neuroscience that people with larger and more complex social networks also have larger amygdalas.

The findings
The findings correspond to previous research that found that primates also have a larger amygdala, relative to the overall size of their brain and body. Like humans, primates live in fairly complex social groups, suggesting that a larger amygdala has evolved to help navigate these landscapes.