"My prefrontal cortex is on strike." Are young people rushing to be diagnosed with the "internet-famous illness"?
The attitude of contemporary young people towards illness is as contradictory as Schrödinger's cat.
Sometimes they avoid seeking medical advice and dare not look at their physical examination reports. They turn a blind eye to the confirmed small nodules, mild fatty liver, and gastritis in the reports, comforting themselves that it's nothing serious.
Sometimes they are eager to "diagnose" new diseases for themselves: "No wonder I've been feeling half - alive and lazy every day. It turns out I have prefrontal lobe damage."
A popular meme about the prefrontal lobe spread by netizens. (Photo/Screenshot from social platform)
Recently, it's the prefrontal lobe's turn to be in the spotlight.
This professional term, which was originally common in neuroscience textbooks, has recently become a frequent guest on the hot search list.
Similar to the situation when professional terms like ADHD, PUA, and bipolar disorder first became popular, countless netizens don't even know what the prefrontal lobe is, but they have subconsciously started to compare their own situations with the symptoms of prefrontal lobe damage in online posts, and most likely find that they match almost all of them:
"I have difficulty concentrating. I also have trouble making decisions and getting entangled. I have memory decline. (For example,) I can't remember where I put the scissors right after using them."
"Weak self - control and can't stop swiping short videos. Who doesn't have this problem?!"
The prefrontal lobe often makes it to the hot search list recently. (Photo/Screenshot from Weibo)
As a result, netizens who have self - diagnosed spread the term "prefrontal lobe". Posts like "How to judge if you have prefrontal lobe damage" have received thousands of likes, and tutorials on "How to take care of the prefrontal lobe" are everywhere on social media.
In some comment sections, "the prefrontal lobe is not well - developed" has even become a new way to insult others.
Young people start to use the prefrontal lobe to explain all kinds of out - of - control situations in life. But what exactly is the prefrontal lobe? Does the so - called prefrontal lobe damage really need treatment?
You know, when almost everyone has a certain "illness", maybe it's not an illness but a syndrome of the era.
Prefrontal lobe damage,
Another internet - famous illness?
Before becoming an internet buzzword, the prefrontal lobe has long been a top research topic in the field of neuroscience.
It is located behind the forehead, accounting for about 29% of the total area of the cerebral cortex. It is the part that has changed the most during the evolution of primates.
Put simply, the prefrontal lobe is like the CEO of the brain, responsible for planning goals, correcting mistakes, controlling impulses, and regulating emotions -
It helps you break down your postgraduate entrance examination goals into daily tasks, helps you learn from failures, helps you stop yourself from impulsive late - night shopping, and helps you maintain your dignity as an adult when emotions strike.
Of course, the functions of the prefrontal lobe are far more than these, and there is a vast amount of relevant research.
There is no shortage of popular science content about the prefrontal lobe online, but because the content is too professional and obscure, it's difficult to spark discussions among ordinary netizens. It wasn't until a series of relevant videos shot by blogger @Yang Yukun - Yukun went viral, with the highest - liked content reaching 400,000 likes, that the prefrontal lobe directly became a hit.
Blogger Yang Yukun became well - known because of his prefrontal lobe videos. (Photo/@Yang Yukun - Yukun)
Yang Yukun is a doctoral student in computational neuroscience in Austria. He is also a young father who has taken care of his child alone. The high - intensity life of pursuing a doctorate while taking care of a child made him start to use his academic knowledge to think about and explain life phenomena -
What kind of behavior would a person with an under - developed prefrontal lobe function (such as a child) have?
And how should an adult with insufficient sleep and high stress protect their prefrontal lobe function so that they can still control their emotions and make rational decisions in life instead of breaking down on the spot?
Compared with ordinary popular science, Yang Yukun's videos are better because they combine various life scenarios for explanation. This makes it easy for netizens to associate with their own experiences and promotes the rapid popularity of the prefrontal lobe concept.
Yang Yukun can be regarded as the number one person in prefrontal lobe popular science. (Photo/@Yang Yukun - Yukun)
For example, in a video about parenting experience, he mentioned that we should respect the development of a child's prefrontal lobe. Some things should be left for the child to decide on their own, and parents shouldn't interfere in everything. Some parents even tell their children "Look at this, it's worth seeing" when traveling. This may inhibit the use of the child's prefrontal lobe decision - making function.
This example made many people think of their childhood resistance to their parents' instructions. Sometimes, when they were about to do their homework, if their parents happened to remind them "Go and do your homework quickly", they would suddenly lose the motivation to act.
Previously, young people thought that the psychology behind this was the grievance of being misunderstood. Excessive reminders sometimes equal pre - accusation, assuming that the child would be lazy.
Now, netizens have found a new explanation for it by themselves - the process of using the prefrontal lobe in childhood was interrupted by parents and not respected.
In "Home with Kids", Liu Xing intended to clean up the messy tea table out of kindness, but his mother assumed that he had made it messy. (Photo/"Home with Kids")
In another video about "respecting the prefrontal lobe of your partner", he described that some people are used to treating their partners as an external brain. For example, they ask their partners where the scissors are when they can't find them and need their partners to remind them of various life arrangements every day. But once their partners' prefrontal lobes are over - occupied by such trivial life matters, they are prone to having a bad mood.
This detail also resonated with many people, explaining why the fuse for quarrels between couples is sometimes just trivial things like "not knowing where things are" or "whether the toilet lid is closed or not".
It also helped some netizens find the reason for their bad mood:
"No wonder I always feel like a pressure cooker full of emotions every day after becoming a class teacher. It turns out that my prefrontal lobe has been consumed to ruins by the trivial matters of dozens of people."
Netizens actively took screenshots of Yang Yukun's videos and spread them. (Photo/@Piaopiao piu on Xiaohongshu)
After all these, Yang Yukun was jokingly called the man who respects the prefrontal lobe the most on the whole network.
Some of the jokes he used in his videos have become quite popular, such as "The prefrontal lobe of the brain doesn't mature until a person is 25 years old, so before the age of 25, people are biologically stupid" and "It is recommended to include the prefrontal lobe in the mate - selection criteria".
Young people who are afraid of becoming stupid,
Compete to "respect Teacher Prefrontal Lobe"
In round after round of discussions across the network, the prefrontal lobe has gradually become a synonym for rational decision - making.
People imagine it as the CPU of a computer or the computing power of an AI. It seems that all big and small things in life need to occupy the prefrontal lobe's "share".
Young people respect it as "Teacher Prefrontal Lobe" and believe that people with a well - developed prefrontal lobe are more emotionally stable and can make more rational judgments.
As a result, the prefrontal lobe literature, with a bit of self - mockery, a bit of popular science, and a bit of joking, has gradually spread on the Internet. It can be roughly divided into two categories.
One is the school of protecting the prefrontal lobe. Many people start to associate their problems such as inattention and lack of motivation with damage to the cerebral cortex - "Always forgetting whether you locked the door? The prefrontal lobe is damaged." "Feeling tired even though you haven't achieved much? The prefrontal lobe is damaged."
Online discussions related to the prefrontal lobe. (Photo/@Jinju Lemon and @Mi MIMO on Xiaohongshu)
After the prefrontal lobe literature became popular, countless young people looked back on their lifestyle habits such as staying up late for a long time, constantly struggling with what to wear and which takeaway to order, and swiping their phones while working. They felt that they were wasting the precious computing power of the prefrontal lobe on meaningless trivial matters every day.
Many posts take the consistent clothing styles and life recipes of celebrities like Steve Jobs as examples, explaining that geniuses always use their prefrontal lobes on things worth thinking about.
On this basis, various prefrontal lobe protection strategies have emerged, including but not limited to getting enough sleep, not getting entangled in trivial matters, and doing only one thing at a time. The core is not to let the prefrontal lobe be overloaded, just like not leaving a bunch of software windows open when using a computer.
(Photo/@Yang Yukun - Yukun)
The other category is the self - mockery and deconstruction school. Netizens are not obsessed with studying how to protect the prefrontal lobe. They just regard it as an interesting new internet meme.
Some people joke that staying up too late makes "leaves grow in their heads". Some self - mockingly say "Teacher Prefrontal Lobe is on leave again today". Others joke that their prefrontal lobe "would be smooth and delicious if cooked into brain flower".
Many people write abstract copywriting using the prefrontal lobe to self - mock their bad habit of staying up too late. (Photo/@Garfield Cat Group)
Some bloggers even distinguish characters in film and television interpretations into prefrontal - lobe - type male leads and amygdala (the brain tissue that generates emotions) - type male leads, corresponding to rational and calm personalities and gentle and emotional personalities.
The common self - discipline strategy posts on the Internet have quietly transformed into "Prefrontal Lobe Master Training Posts", although the content is still the same old things about how to enter the flow state and how to implement existing plans.
It can be said that currently on the Internet, the prefrontal lobe is rapidly evolving from a professional medical concept into a vague synonym for decision - making ability and becoming a cultural phenomenon.
However, not everyone approves of this generalized use of medical terms.
What does real prefrontal lobe damage look like?
On social platforms, there are also discussions expressing disgust towards the prefrontal lobe craze.
These netizens believe that in this trend, many people don't really understand what the prefrontal lobe is. Cyber - diagnosing prefrontal lobe damage or prefrontal lobe function impairment is nonsense. In medicine, there are more rigorous diagnosis processes such as functional assessment and imaging examinations.
Some people think that turning it into a meme may hurt real patients with prefrontal lobe damage.
For example, car accidents and some diseases such as stroke, intracranial infection, and neurodegenerative diseases can all lead to prefrontal lobe damage in people, which may in turn cause symptoms such as stereotyped behavior and emotional out - of - control in patients.
Previously, well - known American rapper Kanye West (Ye) once paid to publish an article in the Wall Street Journal, apologizing for his past extreme behaviors and explaining that he did these things because of prefrontal lobe damage caused by a car accident many years ago, which made him suffer from bipolar disorder.