@doctorhoeflinger: Here’s what happens in your brain when you see someone close to you unexpectedly or after a long period of time. The first thing that happens is that light reflecting off the person hits your eyes and quickly travels to the occipital lobe in the back of your brain where facial features, shape, and movement are being processed. Next, a specialized region in the temporal lobe called the Fusiform Face area identifies the face and matches it to stored visual images that you have of the person. This visual information then routes to the amygdala which is the brain’s emotional hub. The amygdala then evaluates if this person is safe, familiar or significant. Simultaneously, the hippocampus, which is the brain’s memory center quickly tries to pull up a profile regarding who this person is, how you know them and where you last left off. Neuroscience reveals that your brain actually builds a detailed internal model for people you care about. Seeing them forces your brain to immediately reactivate that stored information thus bridging the gap of missing time. As soon as recognition clicks, your brain releases a flurry of hormones and neurotransmitters, including dopamine, adrenaline, oxytocin, and endorphins. These substances create a hit of pleasure, surprise, “butterflies in your stomach” feeling, a sense of safety and reattachment as well as feelings of comfort and content to name a few. So you can see that everything we experience in life has an elaborate orchestrated sequence of events that occurs automatically in our brain to make what we encounter real for us.

Dr. Brian Hoeflinger, MD

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Friday 23 October 2026 14:20:11 GMT