Dysregulation Research Paper

An out-of-body experience is explained by few as a sense of being detached from one’s body, and if associated with other factors like a sense that the world is not real, far away, or even foggy. This with the combination of failure to recall significant personal information, or the content of a meaningful conversation forgotten from one second to the next are signs of a psychological disorder known as Dissociative Disorder. Considered as a rare and mysterious psychiatric curiosity, Dissociative Disorders will be the psychological disorder that will be discussed in this paper.

Concussions are complex cerebral injuries that result in a series of metabolic events within the brain. The changes are seen in the fragile neuronal homeostatic balances where changes in the elevations of glutamate and potassium have been identified. The effects of concussions have also been seen in the functioning of the brain rather than in the structure of the brain itself. Being identified as mild traumatic brain injuries, occurring due to a bump or jolt to head or neck, concussions can result in both short-term and long-term effects. Although most individuals are able to recover from these head injuries, a small but relevant portion of individuals have been found to suffer from chronic long-term effects including early onsets of Alzheimer disease, clinical depression and other cognitive complications. The occurrence of a secondary concussion during the recovery phase of a primary concussion, also recognized as the second impact syndrome, has been shown to increase the risk for long-term effects of cerebral and neurological failure as the neurons have become incapable of experiencing normal functions after an initial traumatic brain injury. The recoveries from these initial concussions are critical to prevent the onset of long-term effects.

Childhood maltreatment is a prevalent problem through out the world. As a child grows and matures the brain continues to develop according its experiences. During this time sensitive periods of development for different areas of the brain. A few areas that are of interest are the stress-influenced areas, which are at an increased risk for developmental problems when exposed to maltreatment. The extra stress from such exposures can influence abnormalities throughout the brain, which have been linked to structure changes with in the corpus callosum, anterior cingulate, dorsolateral prefrontal, orbitofrontal cortex, and hippocampus, amygdala, and cerebellum, as well as changes to stress related hormone systems. These structural changes are associated with an increased risk of psychopathology and other life long educational and physiological risk.

However, trying to change behavior or build new skills on a foundation of brain circuits that were wired improperly when they were first formed requires more work and is less effective than getting it right the first time. Therefore, remedial education, clinical treatment, and other professional interventions are more costly and produce less desirable outcomes than the provision of nurturing, protective relationships and appropriate learning experiences earlier in life. As a result, our brains retain the capacity to change and adapt even as we age, once it develops the exaggerated neurological response to toxic stress never goes away, with

The brain develops in such a way that it leaves itself vulnerable to these negative influences. The prenatal brain develops an overabundance of neurons, some of which are then carefully eliminated before age 4 (5). In a process similar to this, the amount of synapses between neurons is built up during early childhood and then pruned back for the next 30 years of life (5). These two processes are both disturbed by elevated levels of stress hormones (5). The two centers of the brain with the most postnatal changes, including the growth of new neurons after birth, are the hippocampus, which is part of the limbic system, and the cerebellar vermis (6). The hippocampus is in charge of creating and retrieving memories, working together with the other parts of the limbic system, such as the amygdala, which records the emotions for each memory. The vermis controls the production and release of two of the catecholamine neurotransmitters, dopamine and norepinephrine (6). Both the vermis and the limbic system have higher concentrations of receptors for the stress hormone cortisol than anywhere else in the brain (6). Due to this fact, these still-developing areas are the most vulnerable to the damage done by elevated levels of stress hormones.

The brain can be affected by damage and cause behavior to be expressed differently in every person. Events such as a car crash or childhood abuse can affect brain development and function. Damage to certain areas of the brain can have a variety of effects. The hippocampus controls emotions and is associated with memory, and the frontal lobe is a brain cortex that controls motor functions, problem solving, memory, language, judgments, social and sexual behavior and impulse. When the frontal lobe or hippocampus is affected, a person’s emotion can be out of their control.

Damage done from trauma on the neurological functioning of the brain can be widespread, but can be found to interfere with functioning of the hippocampus and the limbic system to a greater extent. Randall (2011) explained that when a large amount of stress is continually placed on the brain from ongoing trauma, cortisol, a fight or flight response chemical, can fail to stop firing when the stressor that ignited the cortisol is no longer present. This excess of cortisol impairs the brains ability to function properly (Randall, 2011). Andersen, Tomada, Vincow, Valente, Polcari, Teicher (2008) found that women who had experienced sexual abuse during childhood actually had a difference in the volume of their hippocampus (as cited in Pechtel and Pizzagalli, 2011). The region which controls memory and emotional regulation was found to be smaller in the women who had been sexually abused in early childhood in comparison to

3. to determine the degree of consistency between the sources and across situations with respect to reports of behaviours associated with ADHD.

Hippocampus is a small, curved region, which exists in both hemispheres of the brain and plays a vital role in emotions, learning and acquisition of new information. It also contributes majorly to long term memory, which is permanent information stored in the brain. Although long term memory is the last information that can be forgotten, its impairment has become very common nowadays. The dysfunction is exemplified by many neurological disorders such as amnesia. There are two types of amnesia, anterograde and retrograde. Anterograde amnesia is inability in forming new information, while retrograde refers to the loss of the past memory. As suggested by Cipolotti and Bird (2006), hippocampus’s lesions are

Behavioural deficits are key to understanding schizophrenia which are caused by attentional changes (Rothschild & Gaidis, 1981). Aberrant-salience theory has been investigated using latent inhibition (Haselgrove, 2015). Even though animal studies are not a principal point in this essay, the knowledge that animal latent inhibition was controlled by attentional processes led to the use of latent inhibition procedures to examine human pathologies characterized by attentional dysfunctions, predominantly in schizophrenia (Lubow, 2005). It was reported that latent inhibition effects in humans and animals were governed by the same attentional processors therefore Lubow (2005) suggested that the attentional devices that are accountable for latent inhibition in

Dang et al.(2017) performed a level 2 systematic review that looked at different treatment modalities to address brain injury and the behavioral, cognition, and mood. The article is credible and peer-reviewed.

There is growing consensus that the core features of BPD lie in affect dysregulation, impulsivity, unstable relationships, and self-harm (Bateman, Ryle, Fonagy, & Kerr, 2007; Choi-Kain & Gunderson, 2008; Eizirik & Fonagy, 2009; Fonagy & Luyten, 2009). These features are not isolated characteristics and could be understood and integrated under the mentalizing theory framework (Fonagy & Target, 2000). For example, affect dysregulation and impulsivity could be explained by the low threshold for the activation of the attachment system and the deactivation of mentalizing (Fonagy & Luyten, 2009). When operating in the pre-reflective psychic equivalence mode, BPD patients have difficulty differentiating mental states of self and others.

(SES) with cognitive ability during childhood. Such studies have presented strong correlations between the two variables, however little research has been done on the effects of SES with specific areas of the brain. The current study will specifically explore the hippocampal region using a variety of measures to asses the variation of size and activity, to further investigate the effects of material hardship on the developing brains of

"Quietly, unobtrusively and extremely fitfully, something in my mind began to assert itself, to question things, and to refuse to be brainwashed…" The main character, Tambudzai, in the novel Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga, is determined to get a white education without losing her native tongue and ways. However this proves to be more difficult that she would expect and seeds that are planted in her mind by the whites begin to take shape, and greatly affect her existence. I will begin by giving an overview of the story leading up to the point where Tambu heads off to begin her education at the missionary school. Next I show how Tambu has already been brainwashed into believing