Thread by @JamesThrot

We are being gaslit into believing that the impulsivity, cruelty & polarisation we are seeing is purely cultural & political.

That explanation is psychologically comforting, but inaccurate.

It means we don't have to examine biology.

But we must.

COVID has entered the chat 🧵

The pretrontal cortex, particularly dorsolateral & orbitofrontal regions, is the regulatory governor of human behaviour.

It exerts top-down control over limbic threat circuitry.

It suppresses impulses before they become actions.

It filters speech before it leaves your mouth.

This is the system that allows you to

Pause.
Reconsider.
Anticipate consequences.
Inhibit bias.
Tolerate ambiguity.
De-escalate when provoked.

Remove or weaken that system and behaviour changes reliably.

In clinical neurology, frontal lobe dysfunction produces a recognisable profile:

Disinhibition.
Reduced empathy.
Impaired risk evaluation.
Rigid thinking.
Poor social judgement.
Diminished insight into one's own deficits.

This is not controversial.

Now introduce a pathogen with well documented evidence of neuroinflammation, microvascular injury, blood-brain barrier disruption, white matter disruption, microglial activation, measurable executive dysfunction post-infection.

Including in mild & asymptomatic cases.

SARS-CoV-2

Executive function is defined within neurology.

It is the operational capacity of the frontal lobes.

If you inflame or disrupt those circuits repeatedly, you are not dealing with a purely respiratory event.

You are applying repeated stress to the brain's regulatory system.

One infection does not "turn someone into a fascist", before the usual lot chime in. That caricature exists to avoid real discussion.

Neurobiology alters thresholds, not identities.

Inhibition ⬇️.
Cognitive flexibility ⬇️.
Reactivity ⬆️.

Small shifts, but on a global scale.

What does reduced inhibition look like socially?

More people saying what used to remain internal.

More inability to read context.

More absolutist rhetoric.

More Al-generated shock content posted without proportion.

More "I'm just being honest" as a substitute for restraint.

Prejudice does not need to be invented.

It needs to be suppressed.

Frontal control is heavily involved in inhibiting automatic bias responses.

Weaken the control system, and expression increases.

Hence the probability of doing and/or saying inappropriate things rises.

Now consider power structures.

Politics requires long-term risk modelling & perspective taking.

Diplomacy requires cognitive flexibility under provocation.

Law enforcement requires calibrated threat assessment under stress.

These are frontal lobe tasks.

If executive control is even modestly degraded in high power roles, escalation becomes easier & more likely.

Overconfidence increases.

Impulse overrides foresight.

Seconds of reduced inhibition change outcomes.

And we know that history often hinges on a single moment.

The most disturbing part?

Frontal dysfunction commonly impairs insight.

You do not feel your inhibitory control eroding.

You feel "normal". You'd refuse to believe otherwise.

If impairment is widespread, social feedback loops collapse.

The baseline quietly shifts.

The crux of the matter is that, yes, social media algorithms amplity outrage.

And, yes, economic stress polarises populations.

But biology and environment interact. This is simply undeniable.

If the neural brakes are worn down then the entire system becomes more combustible.

We are living through a mass infection event involving a virus with documented neurological effects.

Refusing to even interrogate the behavioural implications is not prudence.

It is avoidance, verging on denialism.

The question isn't whether people are evil or immoral. Even if it seems that way.

It is whether we are ignoring cumulative neurological insult while pretending the erosion of restraint, empathy & foresight is purely cultural & political.

That assumption may age very badly.

END