The Effects of Trauma on Brain and Body
Mark B. Constantian in Childhood Abuse, Body Shame, and Addictive Plastic Surgery, 2018
The hypothalamus forms the core of the mind/body connection, and can engage the autonomic nervous system, immune and endocrine function, as well as learning and memory through hippocampal connections. The cingulate cortex also modulates incoming data and is responsible for cognitive flexibility, adaptation, and interpreting emotions, and mediates stress—evoked cardiovascular activity.18,19 The cingulate gyrus can inhibit the amygdalar response for minor threats. Otherwise, the autonomic nervous system activates, and epinephrine is released by the adrenal cortex, which increases blood glucose, shunts blood from abdominal viscera to skeletal muscle, and increases pulse, blood pressure, and cardiac output. Pupils dilate and muscles become ready to respond.
Akinetic Mutism
Alexander R. Toftness in Incredible Consequences of Brain Injury, 2023
For example, when part of your brain decides that you want to speak, your brain needs to coordinate and send signals to other parts of your brain that control your jaw muscles and to the parts that understand language. Damage to any part of that circuit can result in difficulties with starting and continuing voluntary actions, such as speaking full sentences or standing up and walking (Vickers et al., 2018). More specifically, an area called the anterior cingulate cortex has two-way connections with decision-making regions of the frontal lobes and emotional regions of the limbic system and is thought to use that information for planning behaviors such as moving or talking, so damaging it may produce symptoms of reduced behavior (Arnts et al., 2020). Other regions that combine incoming signals from different places in the brain are the striatum and the thalamus, both of which are often involved in akinetic mutism (Arnts et al., 2020).
The emotional brain: Combining insights from patients and basic science
Howard J. Rosen, Robert W. Levenson in Neurocase, 2020
The medial frontal regions, especially the anterior cingulate cortex, also play a role in emotion. Similar to the amygdala, these regions are active during viewing of emotional faces in fMRI studies (Phan et al., 2002), and during tasks where decisions are in part mediated by the emotional content of the stimulus (Bush et al., 2000). Researchers often distinguish between the more dorsal portion the anterior cingulate cortex, which is thought to play an important role in monitoring of cognitive processing, and the more ventral anterior cingulate, which appears to subserve monitoring of internal sensations related to emotional functions (Vogt et al., 2003). Lesions to ventral and medial frontal regions impair recognition of emotions (Hornak et al., 2003). As will be discussed below, the anterior cingulate also plays an important role in mediating reactions to emotional stimuli.
Cortical Networks for Correcting Errors in Sensorimotor Synchronization Depend on the Direction of Asynchrony
Published in Journal of Motor Behavior, 2018
K. J. Jantzen, Benjamin R. Ratcliff, McNeel G. Jantzen
We identified 6 active cortical sources (Figure 2). Two sources localized to the primary motor cortex. An anterior source (SMCa) on the postcentral gyrus and the anterior wall of the central sulcus was localized to Brodmann areas (BAs) 4 and 6. A posterior motor cortex source (SMCp) on the posterior bank of the central sulcus localized to BAs 3 and 4. Although these two regions combined at lower thresholds, and therefore may represent a single motor source, they displayed distinct peaks prompting us to analyze their activity separately. A dorsal medial source in BA 6 was localized almost entirely anterior to the vertical anterior commissure line in keeping with the anatomical location of the pre-SMA (Kim et al., 2010; Picard & Strick, 1996). We also identified two regions on the cingulate cortex. The first was in the ACC extending across BAs 24 and 32 and the second was in the posterior cingulate located in BA 31. A final active region was localized to the contralateral posterior parietal cortex extending into BAs 3, 7, and 40. The Talairach coordinates, anatomical location and size of each region of interest is provided in (Table 1).
Hypnotic Automaticity in the Brain at Rest: An Arterial Spin Labelling Study
Published in International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 2019
Pierre Rainville, Anouk Streff, Jen-I Chen, Bérengère Houzé, Carolane Desmarteaux, Mathieu Piché
Between-subject regression analyses were also performed using individual changes in hypnotic depth and the individual hypnotizability scores as predictors of hypnosis-related rCBF changes (Figure 5). The analysis of hypnotic depth revealed a single positive peak at x = − 2, y = − 56, z = 4 (t = 4.22, p < .001). This effect was difficult to interpret anatomically as the peak fell in the midline, within cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), below the most caudal part of the posterior cingulate cortex and above the cerebellum. The regression performed on hypnotizability scores also revealed a single positive peak at x = 8, y = − 50, z = 26 (t = 4.38, p < .001). This peak was located in the retrosplenial part of the posterior cingulate cortex. No negative regression peak was found on hypnotic depth and hypnotizability.
Nitric oxide modulates cognitive, nociceptive and motor functions in a rat model of empathy
Published in International Journal of Neuroscience, 2020
Fatemeh Mohammadi, Meysam Ahmadi-Zeidabadi, Masoud Nazeri, Asghar Ghasemi, Mohammad Shabani
It has already been demonstrated that observing another person in pain leads to the activation of brain regions responsible for processing of the affective component of pain in human. One of these areas is anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) which is involved in emotional regulation, executive function and pain perception [7]. Human imaging studies have also unraveled an important role for the ACC and insular cortex in the empathy process [8]. In addition, animal studies have also demonstrated that even rats showed prosocial empathic behaviors to help each other while seeing a conspecific in distress condition or in pain[1,5,9]. Langford et al. demonstrated that observation of pain in another mice leads to alterations in the sensory modulation of pain and a reduced threshold to noxious stimuli is observed in the mice that observed other mice in pain [10]. Besides that, results of another study showed that both sensory and affective aspects of pain significantly changed following observation of cagemate in pain, which means that in addition to sensory changes following empathic pain, more complex cognitive functions had also been affected by empathy [11]. Furthermore, it has been reported that observing pain in a conspecific leads to anxiety-like behavior and hypernociception in animals [12]. Unfortunately, the molecular mechanisms of empathic pain have not been well understood so far, but the previous studies showed that several mechanisms are involved in pain such as nitric oxide (NO) system [13]. It is also shown that the NOS1 (nitric oxide synthesis 1) gene plays an important role in social behavior including empathy [14].