When Freud introduced his famous Structural Model (consisting of the Id, Ego and Superego) in 1923, he explicitly stated these were functional, dynamic systems of the mind, not physical regions or partitions of the brain. The Id the realm of unconscious, biological internal drives (like the pleasure principle, sexual urges and aggression). The Ego and Superego are structural systems that develop to manage, repress, or satisfy those drives in accordance with reality and societal morals.
However, there is a modern intersection: neuropsychoanalysis.
Though Freud did not claim that drives physically wire the brain, modern neuroscientists like Mark Solms and disciplines like neuropsychoanalysis have picked up where Freud left off. Modern neuroscience actually supports a version of this concept through neuroplasticity. Our “drive circuits” are subcortical brain structures (like the hypothalamus and the mesocorticolimbic dopamine seeking system) that generate basic emotional and survival drives. The wiring of the cortex is flexible. The firing of these deep, internal drive networks actively shapes and structures the neural connections in the higher cortex during childhood development as the brain learns how to satisfy its biological needs.
Ultimately, while Freud believed drives structured our personalities and mental frameworks, it is modern neuroscience—not Freud himself—that confirms internal drives physically shape the structural wiring of the brain.
