“We have needs that we are all born with.
When those basic needs are not met, we hurt.
And when that hurt is big enough, it is imprinted into the system.
It changes the system, our whole physiologic system.
What our therapy does, it goes back to those early brains, those hurt brains, and relive the pain, and get it out of the system.
Because meanwhile, that pain is being held in storage, and just waiting for its exit, so to speak.
So Primal Therapy is a way of accessing our feeling brain, and down below even the feeling brain, to the brainstem, to get to all of the hurts that started very early in our lives.
And bring them up to consciousness for connection and integration.
It is a very systematic therapy, by the patient.
The patient decides when he comes and when he leaves and how long he stays.
There’s no 50-minute hour anymore.
It’s the feelings of the patient that determine when he stops.”
4-5 stars Advanced knowledge
Advanced knowledge
One way that an infant unconsciously knows the emotions of the humans in their environment
This 2014 human study found one way that an infant unconsciously recognized the emotions of the humans in their environment:
“The current study provides neural evidence for the unconscious detection of emotion and gaze cues from the sclera in 7-mo-old infants.
Wide-open eyes, exposing a lot of white, indicate fear or surprise. A thinner slit of exposed eye, such as when smiling, expresses happiness or joy.”
The basis for finding that the subjects’ responses were unconscious was that the researchers determined that displaying images of eyes for 50 milliseconds fell below the threshold of infants’ conscious awareness.
http://www.pnas.org/content/111/45/16208.full “Unconscious discrimination of social cues from eye whites in infants”
The degree of epigenetic DNA methylation may be used as a proxy to measure biological age
This fascinating 2014 human study developed the new use of a somewhat intuitive marker of aging. The researchers used the degree of methylation – an epigenetic chemical modification of DNA – as an epigenetic clock to measure biological age.
The researchers found that, on average, the epigenetic age of the liver increased by 3.3 years for every increase in 10 body mass index (BMI) units. Other studied tissue areas weren’t similarly affected.
http://www.pnas.org/content/111/43/15538.full “Obesity accelerates epigenetic aging of human liver”
Fear extinction is the learned inhibition of retrieval of previously acquired responses
This 2014 rodent study showed that fear extinction doesn’t depend on memory retrieval:
“These results show that extinction and retrieval are separate processes and strongly suggest that extinction is triggered or gated by the conditioned stimulus even in the absence of retrieval.”
Key to my understanding this finding came from a definition in another summary study by the authors, The learning of fear extinction, where they stated:
“Extinction is the learned inhibition of retrieval of previously acquired responses.”
These two studies and Hippocampal mechanisms involved in the enhancement of fear extinction caused by exposure to novelty should inform researchers of studies such as If rodent training has beneficial epigenetic effects, how can the next step be human gene therapy? of desirable alternative treatments, rather than proceeding from rodent training directly to human gene therapy.
http://www.pnas.org/content/112/2/E230.full “Extinction learning, which consists of the inhibition of retrieval, can be learned without retrieval”
We are attuned to perceive what our brains predict will be rewarding
What I got from this 2014 human study is that from the beginnings of our lives, we are attuned to perceive what our brains predict will be rewarding.
The subjects’ whole brains were monitored, but only areas of the cerebrum participated in the findings to a significant degree.
“Sounds associated with high rewards increase the sensitivity of vision.
The same neurons that process sensory information are modulated by reward..and thereby influence perception from the earliest stages of cortical processing.
Reward associations modulated responses in regions associated with multisensory processing in which the strength of modulation was a better predictor of the magnitude of the behavioral effect than the modulation in classical reward regions.”
Sounds a little bit like we all might have a mild case of synesthesia.
http://www.pnas.org/content/111/42/15244.full “Cross-modal effects of value on perceptual acuity and stimulus encoding”
How to make a child less capable even before they are born: stress the pregnant mother-to-be
This 2014 rodent study showed how to make a less-capable pup by stressing the mother early in gestation. The study centered on a placental enzyme (OGT) that translates a mother’s stress into neuroprogramming of her developing fetus.
One finding was that this enzyme was less plentiful when the fetus was male compared with female.
Another finding was that the enzyme was less plentiful when the mother was stressed early in gestation, compared with unstressed mothers.
Informed by the first two findings, the researchers studied the placentae of male pups where the mother was stressed early in gestation. They found that these placentae had lower levels of an enzyme (Hsd17b3) that converts the precursor androstenedione into testosterone.
The resultant finding was that the male pups of stressed mothers had lower levels of testosterone than the control group of male pups.
A fourth finding was that offspring of both sexes born with a placenta where the OGT enzyme was less plentiful had 10-20% less body weight, a condition that developed after weaning. The researchers attributed this finding to reduced mitochondrial function in the hypothalamus compared with normal mice.
http://www.pnas.org/content/111/26/9639.full “Targeted placental deletion of OGT recapitulates the prenatal stress phenotype including hypothalamic mitochondrial dysfunction”
Hypothalamic oxytocin and vasopressin have sex-specific effects on pair bonding, gregariousness, and aggression
This 2014 bird study showed the complementary effects of neurochemicals vasopressin and oxytocin in the hypothalamus.
Oxytocin neurons in the hypothalamus promote pair bonding and gregariousness in females.
Vasopressin neurons in the hypothalamus promote maternal care, social recognition, and gregariousness in both males and females, and aggression in males toward females.
Vasopressin and oxytocin released generally and in other parts of the brain have different effects. For example:
“Central administration of oxytocin also attenuates stress-induced effects on the brain and reverses stress-induced social avoidance.”
http://www.pnas.org/content/111/16/6069.full “Hypothalamic oxytocin and vasopressin neurons exert sex-specific effects on pair bonding, gregariousness, and aggression in finches”
Flooding the hypothalamus with neurochemicals affects reward-seeking, motivated, and depressive behavior
This 2014 rodent study showed the opposing effects of neurochemicals orexin (excitator) and dynorphin (inhibitor) in the hypothalamus.
The hypothalamus plays a role in behaviors such as addiction and impulsiveness. Food and cocaine self-administration were the main techniques used.
Flooding the hypothalamus with orexin produced reward-seeking and motivated behavior. That was greatly reduced when dynorphin levels were increased, and depressive behavior set in.
http://www.pnas.org/content/111/16/E1648.full “Hypocretin (orexin) facilitates reward by attenuating the antireward effects of its cotransmitter dynorphin in ventral tegmental area”
We pay attention to the present through the windows of perception that we’ve developed from our past
My paraphrase of the 2013 study’s findings:
- We pay attention to the present through the windows of perception that we’ve developed from our past;
- The rest of the world is blocked by our consciousness’ perceptual thresholds.
It was good to read an attention study that didn’t zap the subjects’ brains.
http://www.pnas.org/content/111/4/E417.full “Prestimulus oscillatory power and connectivity patterns predispose conscious somatosensory perception”
Our cerebrums visually process objects according to what use we think we would make of the objects
This 2014 human study showed that the way our cerebrums visually processed objects depended on what use we think we would make of the objects.
http://www.pnas.org/content/111/10/E962.full “Task context impacts visual object processing differentially across the cortex”
What are the facts about the left-brain/right-brain characterizations?
This 2013 human study added to the existing understanding of how our brain hemispheres work.
“The main contribution of our study is to demonstrate, at a whole-brain scope, the qualitative differences between the hemispheres in their within- and between-hemisphere interactions. The correlations with behavioral ability really hammer this distinction home, since one needed to use the appropriate metric – that is, segregation versus integration – to see these correlations.
..the left hemisphere showing a preference to interact more exclusively with itself, particularly for cortical regions involved in language and fine motor coordination. In contrast, right-hemisphere cortical regions involved in visuospatial and attentional processing interact in a more integrative fashion with both hemispheres.
The degree of lateralization present in these distinct systems selectively predicted behavioral measures of verbal and visuospatial ability, providing direct evidence that lateralization is associated with enhanced cognitive ability.”
A paraphrase of this last sentence may be that our overall cognitive ability is enhanced when we develop the functional specializations of both brain hemispheres.
http://www.pnas.org/content/110/36/E3435.full “Two distinct forms of functional lateralization in the human brain”
Sex hormone exposure to the developing female fetus causes infertility in adulthood
This 2014 rodent study was of polycystic ovarian syndrome, which is the leading cause of human female infertility.
The researchers could reliably induce this disease in mice while they were still fetuses, but effects didn’t manifest until adulthood! The inducement method exposed the developing female fetuses to androgens such that their testosterone concentration was significantly increased.
Comparing this study with How mothers-to-be program lifelong low testosterone into their unborn male children, we can see that in early development:
- too much testosterone for a female fetus and
- too little testosterone for a male fetus
both have lifelong ill effects.
http://www.pnas.org/content/112/2/596.full “Enhancement of a robust arcuate GABAergic input to gonadotropin-releasing hormone neurons in a model of polycystic ovarian syndrome”
Maternal depression and antidepressants epigenetically change infant language development
This 2012 human study found that infant language development accelerated when the depressed mother-to-be took antidepressants:
“Language acquisition reflects a complex interplay between biology and early experience.
Psychotropic medication exposure has been shown to alter neural plasticity and shift sensitive periods in perceptual development.”
Infant language development was delayed when the depressed mother-to-be didn’t take serotonin reuptake inhibitor medication:
“Prenatal depressed maternal mood and (S)SRI exposure were found to shift developmental milestones bidirectionally on infant speech perception tasks.”
Contrast this study with Problematic research with telomere length, which pretended that maternal depression had negligible epigenetic effects on the developing fetus, infant, and child.
http://www.pnas.org/content/109/Supplement_2/17221.full “Prenatal exposure to antidepressants and depressed maternal mood alter trajectory of infant speech perception”
Early human brain development can be greatly modified by environmental factors
This 2014 Brazilian human study found that the brains of people born without the corpus callosum, the major connection between brain hemispheres, adapted to this loss:
“The authors believe that the development of alternative pathways results from the brain’s ability for long-distance plasticity and occurs in the utero during embryo development, which indicates that connections formed in the human brain early in development can be greatly modified, and most likely by environmental or genetic factors.”
BRAVO! MORE STUDIES LIKE THIS ONE!
People have limited capability to adapt later in life to corpus callosum injuries or to brain hemisphere disconnection.
http://www.pnas.org/content/111/21/7843.full “Structural and functional brain rewiring clarifies preserved interhemispheric transfer in humans born without the corpus callosum”
The amygdala is where we integrate our perception of human facial emotion
We all have specialized brain circuits for recognizing faces.
Each person has their own historical judgment of the emotion in a human face, which may or may not be the emotion objectively displayed by the face.
The amygdala, not the hippocampus, was found to be where we integrate our perception of human facial emotion.
The facial information conveyed by the eyes, not the mouth, was primarily how the amygdala perceived emotion.
This 2014 study was performed on seven neurology patients who had deep-brain electrodes implanted for other purposes of diagnosis or treatment, including epilepsy and autism, and six healthy control subjects. With the electrodes, the researchers were able to measure individual neurons instead of functional MRI aggregate results.
This increased measuring capability enabled the researchers to develop other findings, such as:
“Neuronal selectivity for fear faces in the amygdala comes mainly from a suppression of activity in happy-face trials, whereas selectivity for happy faces is mainly due to an increase in activity for happy-face trials.”
Also:
“The long latency of the amygdala responses we observed already argues for considerable synthesis, consistent with the integration of face input from temporal cortex with signals from other brain regions, as well as substantial processing internal to the amygdala.”
http://www.pnas.org/content/111/30/E3110.full “Neurons in the human amygdala selective for perceived emotion”
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