Learning More About the Brain (some very basic basics in 3 parts)
This is the second of several posts I’m making in attempts to digest this really important read. Here, I’m breaking down some new brain info.
Subcortical Brainstem Structures Involved in Immediate Responses to Traumatic Events
| 1) Superior Colliculi WHERE | 2) Periaqueductal Gray WHAT | 3) Locus Coeruleus SHOCK |
| A multisensory integration center, registering novelty in the visual, auditory and somatosensory fields. Coordinating immediate orienting behavior. | Involved in the generation of affective (e.g., panic/grief, rage, fear and defensive (e.g., fight, flight, freeze) responding. | A noradrenaline system with diffuse projections across the cerebral cortex. Heavily involved in arousal and attention. Signaling extreme levels of volatility. |
Orienting to WHERE
One of the first things we are being asked to learn in order to deliver DBR therapy is to help our clients locate a central place in their being from which they sense the world and know where they are in it. Anatomically, this place is represented by a brain structure called the Superior Colliculus. It sits on top of the periaqueductal gray, about which we will go into deeper detail later. It looks, maybe, a little like this:
- Midbrain and Upper Brainstem Component of the WHERE System, the Superior Colliculus – This is an orienting structure which “has sensorimotor capacities for effecting inquisitive, acquisitive, and protective responses in relation to the unknown.” (pg 6)
“The collicular self has the power to turn to something or turn away from it without our awareness of that ‘decision.'”
I’m making mental notes here that the Superior Colliculi (Pg 16):
- Serve as an integrative hub for mapping the self in space
- Receive information from the retina, spinal cord and cerebral cortex
- Orient to what is unexpected and novel about the world around us
“You have a sense of your body’s position – how the limbs, torso, neck, and head are placed – and how you are gently held in your chair by the earth’s gravitational field. You are in the place where all this information comes together. This ‘collicular perspective’ is the integrative hub from which your attention radiates outwards to illuminate space with your awareness. Before identifying what you see or hear, you are first aware of WHERE.“
As academics and psychologists, we have long been witness to mixed responses from youngsters and adults alike who are both attracted (compelled to attach) to someone because they represent the very things they need to survive, but at the same time are compelled to escape because they elicit great fear or confusion. This same disorganized response is the domain of the Superior Colliculi, as it turns out–at the micro level. It’s where those opposing orientations begin.
Opposing orientations have important implications for how we understand the effects of interpersonal stimuli that are both a source of nourishment and threat. (Pg 23)
“Horrific experiences activate simultaneous forces of attraction and aversion beyond our control, resulting in an entanglement of orienting responses.” (Pg 24) And this is what DBR is uniquely suited to do. To slow the process (social interaction) down enough so that these opposing orientations can be witnessed, held, and worked out by the body, with the help of a safe objective witness, once and for all.
The WHAT – The Generation of Affective and Defensive Responding
- Midbrain Periaqueductal Gray (the primary structure for the WHAT response system) – our defenses: fight, flight, and freeze, and our affects: fear, rage, and panic/grief arise from this brain structure. The periaqueductal gray has a role in active and passive defense responses and their associated autonomic nervous system changes. (Pg 6)
It is sweet to have a real basis for knowing and discussing the fact that deep somatic and visceral pain of interpersonal origin actually exists. We can know this now because of the machines that are indeed measuring it as we write and read this, and the scientists who are formulating these measures. We can also know that others are, in fact, investing their academic careers to studying the behavioral relevance of such pain.
It’s reassuring and validating to read descriptors such as “social rejection” in scientific journals. Even though few of us, outside the field, have given much thought about the moment by moment, day by day, year by year interpersonal events from the perspective of our newborn, or infant self. Or that in our parents’ or grandparents’ generations infants were thought not to actually have a self, feelings or memories. An infant’s perspective might not occur in words, but it most certainly endures in the form of somatic memories.
A behavior researchers call “withdrawal” refers to what subjects do, behaviorally, upon experiencing a social loss. Social loss, they say, activates “PANIC/GRIEF systems, related action tendencies of fight (confrontation), flight (socially evasive behaviour), and freeze (social anxiety).” (pg 44)
Characteristics of the Periaqueductal Gray Columns
SHOCK – A Noradrenaline System with Diffuse Projections Across the Cerebral Cortex
- Originating at Pons level in the midbrain, the Locus Coeruleus – Heavily involved in arousal and attention, the Locus Coeruleus signals extreme levels of volatility.
Stay tuned for more of my processing of this lovely piece of scholarly work. If you are a counselor or therapist supporting clients with trauma and/or dissociation, or think you might have experienced early relational trauma, I highly recommend that you read it for yourself: