thalamus
"The Thalamus is like a preamplifier for signals sent to the cerebral cortex, organizing the neural message and eliminating meaningless background noise."
On page 228 of:
Auriculotherapy Manual: Chinese and Western Systems of Ear Acupuncture, 4e
"In structure, a portion of the thalamus is like an onion, with each successive layer associated with a different body part: foot, leg, arm, shoulder, face, etc."
"If the injury is fairly significant and/or the individual lacks nutrients to assist healing, then ongoing pain signals are sent to the thalamus, provoking the release of higher-than-desired levels of substance P in the thalamus. In essence, the thalamus is like a cat on a hot tin roof-a problem driven by excessive substance P release. This is often accompanied by a wound-up and anxious, uncomfortable feeling."
"The thalamus is like a major multimedia system. It takes the sensory information from the sense organs and mixes it with the emotional information from the limbic system along with stress signals from the autonomic nervous system and projects this mix onto the cerebral cortex where it is perceived as reality."
"The thalamus is like the tabernacle where the chemical marriage takes place. There are lots of symbols for this such as the orphic egg, the blue apples, etc but what it always comes down to is the mixing of the gland secretions of pineal and pituitary glands. Milk and honey, sweet and sour, blood and water all can be interpreted as relating to the third eye activation and kundalani. Therefore the stories from hebrews, greeks, celts and even the story of Odin have something to teach about this 'mixing'."
"My psychology professor once told us that the thalamus is like Jesus Christ, everything has to go through it first before it gets to the brain"
"he hypothalamus is like your brain's inner thermostat (that little box on the wall that controls the heat in your house). The hypothalamus knows what temperature your body should be (about 98.6 Fahrenheit or 37 Celsius). If your body is too hot, the hypothalamus tells it to sweat. If you're too cold, the hypothalamus gets you shivering. Both shivering and sweating are attempts to get your body's temperature back where it needs to be."
METAMIA is a free database of analogy and metaphor. Anyone can contribute or search. The subject matter can be anything. Science is popular, but poetry is encouraged. The goal is to integrate our fluid muses with the stark literalism of a relational database. Metamia is like a girdle for your muses, a cognitive girdle.