The Effect of Trauma on the Brain In John Rigg’s talk on the effect of trauma on the brain and how it impacts our behaviors, I learned that when we talk about the human brain we are actually talking about two brains—the intelligent brain and the animal brain. The intelligent brain is what allows us to reason, think and essentially “rule the world” as Rigg (2017) puts it. The animal part of the brain, which is smaller, but is still very much a part of the brain, is what reacts to the environment and controls the body’s response. So, in the example Rigg uses, if he were to challenge us to run across the street but to keep our hearts from beating, we would not be able to do it—and the reason is that our animal brain is in control of that function for us. It is not something that we control with our intellect. Our intelligent brain allows us to pick want we want to have for lunch, what we want to study at school and who we want to marry. The animal part tells our bodies how to react to our environment and to that degree that we are in an environment full of stimuli, our bodies are essentially out of the control...
Trauma is an experience related to our environment. We experience something in our surroundings that is particularly shocking to our system. The animal brain is actually responding by triggering our body to release hormones. The brain is actually hyper aroused—it is in a state of primitive animal-ness, to coin a phrase. The brain is operating at another level than the intellect. And a traumatic experience can be something that triggers the brain to be in a state of hyper arousal. Riggs explains it this way: “When the brain is hyper aroused, if it’s stressed out, certainly this is the situation that I see in military personnel who have been involved in combat but everybody gets stressed out: bills, family relations, neighbors making too much noise or whatever, OK. That hyper arousal, that primitive animal brain is pumping out stress hormones, interfering with sleep, keeping you up” (Riggs, 2017). The symptoms that people identify as symptoms of trauma or of PTSD are actually symptoms of the brain’s hyper arousal. It is not…
55). In other words, stress can create a life-long physiological change in and impairment of brain and body functioning. Such recent findings suggest that victims of stress may in fact suffer from a neurological disorder rather than just from a character flaw, mental weakness, or bad luck. Chronic stress can impact individual perception and thinking in significant ways. Research in cognitive neuropsychology has been particularly helpful in identifying some of
Essay Topic Examples 1. The Impact of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) on Cognitive Functioning: Explores the physiological and psychological consequences of TBI, the challenges posed for recovery, and the long-term changes in cognitive abilities that can occur following such injuries. 2. Neurodegenerative Diseases and Their Effect on Brain Health: Analyzes conditions such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and Huntington's disease, examining how these diseases disrupt normal brain function and the resulting symptoms and progression of cognitive
Trauma is considered as 'Mental Agony', distress due to problems internal or personal to the patient's/victim's, undergone by a person during a given period. Even physical or mental distress undergone can also be considered as Trauma.. Trauma means 'injury' and derives from the Greek word meaning 'wound'. Trauma is any physical or mental shock or injury, specifically a serious wound or injury caused by some physical action, as an automobile
pp. 85-6 The brain can be understood in terms of its lobe-like structures, or it can be mapped out according to the regions that seem to dictate and influence certain behaviors and processes. The three major areas of the brain in this schema are the motor areas, the sensory areas, and the association areas, though in reality almost all human functions and behaviors involve interactions between these areas. Interestingly, large and
Traumatic Brain Injury in Children Traumatic brain injury (TBI) has been one of the primary public health problems under health concerns over several decades. Health statistics reveal that this problem has been common among the male adolescents, as well as the young adults under the age bracket of 15 to 24 years. Similarly, this disorder is common among the elderly people of both sexes under the age of 75 and above.
manifestations of types of traumatic brain injury (focal, diffuse) and hemorrhage (epidural, subdural, subarachnoid)? Focal TBI occurs as a result of some mechanical force acting on the skull (and hence the brain) or penetrating injury to the brain. The manifestations of focal TBI will depend on the particular area of the brain that is damaged (Granacher, 2007). For example, damage to the posterior portion of the left frontal lobe will
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