What drives our selfless urge to help others? A recent article written for The Conversation by researcher Kristin Brethel-Haurwitz discusses a study that she conducted in partnership with Georgetown University to try to answer this question. Their study compared the brain activity of anonymous kidney donors to a control group. According to the article, this study found that the amygdala- a portion of the brain that plays an important role in processing emotions- was much more responsive in anonymous kidney donors than in the control group. The article goes on to note that our drive to help others is thought to be an extension of our mammalian instincts to care for the needs of offspring. Extremely altruistic people tend to feel a stronger need to care for those in distress, even if it is someone that they have never met before, all thanks to their highly responsive amygdalas.