Why is it so uncomfortable to stand really close to a stranger?
Sure, there are the potentially icky things. Sometimes an
elevator car is so crowded that you can smell a fellow rider's
shampoo or chewing gum (or worse). But even when a stranger is
perfectly groomed, it's usually a bit revolting to be pressed
against him in public. Why? Evolution seems to have programmed
this discomfort via a brain structure called the amygdalae, a
pair of almond-shaped brain regions deep within each temporal
lobe that control fear and the processing of emotion. It's your
amygdalae that keep you from getting so close to another person
that he could easily reach out, gouge an eye, and then drag your
woman off by her hair. So what happens if you disable the
amygdalae? This is not something you could (ethically) do to a
research subject, but scientists have been studying a 42-year-
old woman who has such severe damage to her amygdalae due to a
rare genetic condition called Urbach-Wiethe disease, which
causes calcification in the t