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little baby memories *CA trigger**** » gazo

Posted by LlurpsieNoodle on April 22, 2007, at 19:09:16

In reply to Re: question about PTSD vrs. spliting *maybe trig, posted by gazo on April 22, 2007, at 18:38:53

Hi Gazo, happyflower, Daisy,
what an interesting thread for someone whose bologna's first name is post-traumatic stress...

but seriously. There is evidence that there are episodic memories that are formed in infancy. For instance some studies have babies in a crib with a brand new toy and if you hit it just a certain way it does something cool. bring them in a week, or even a month later, they remember how to operate the toy.

Everyone always assumes that the brain gets bigger and more complex as we mature during childhood. ironically, the way that the brain matures is that it "prunes" away excess synapses, leaving only the relevant ones. synapses increase and peak and then are withdrawn or pruned. not that the neuron dies, just that it becomes more specific. This is in the neocortex. I dunno about the amydgala. it's a messy place down in the amygdala. so many little nuclei, so many inputs and outputs. it's quite an amazing structure... but I digress

memories can be formed early in childhood. even cortical memories, but they need reinforcement at fairly constant intervals in order to be maintained. This is why a child may grow up speaking fluent 2-year-old french and then move to the outback and never speak french fluently again. reinforcement.

Now take my own particular case history. I have medical evidence that I suffered a severe fall down the stairs at 12 mos of age let's not get into the reasons for that... and I have real memories of being a little kid sitting at the top of those stairs absolutely terrified of falling down them. (these memories were unfortunately reinforced, in my case).

Now as an adult, the first time that memory ever got processed in therapy was pretty horrific. I really felt like the couch I was sitting on was the top step and I was about to fall.

I think that the more "primitive" non-neo brain structures have their own way of encoding and reinforcing events. they code the emotional valence and say "this one's scary" "this one's pleasurable" "this one is boring... NEXT!"

What happens to a traumatized brain is that the anxiety-regulation system gets pretty out of whack, especially from an early age.

Things that cause fear to the amygdala are often undifferentiated. that is: scared of falling down the stairs = scared of being pushed down the stairs = scared of stairs = scared of person doing the pushing = scared of [so many things]

When the amygdala decides that something is scary, it's not smart enough to decide what *exactly* there is to be scared of.

enough about fear... the good thing is that pleasure via nucleus accumbens operates in much the same way. smelling chocolate makes you feel happy. just try it. really. being around people who have done nice things for you in the past gives you a feeling of well-being. seeing baking soda reminds a cocaine addict of that kind of "pleasure". etc. the context is not that specific, only the feeling matters.

I could go on
blah blah blah...

-Ll


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