The Neuroscience
Note: This site is still under construction. Some pages, like this one are not complete yet.
Crash Course Neuro
River A. Dowdy
Human bodies are incredible and have the ability to adapt to our environment and our circumstances in ways that other animals cannot. Much of this is due to our complex and layered brain.
Thinking about brains and neuroscience might seem overwhelming. However, my hope is knowing a little bit about how the brain works, how trauma can affect its development, and how different kinds of therapeutic modalities can access and heal those parts of the brain might bring some hope or sense of purpose and direction when considering the journey of therapy.
If we examine various common types of therapy we can divide most of them into two different approaches.
Bottom-Up
Top-Down
To understand what this means let’s explore some basic topography of the brain.
Rational brain (ish)
Emotional brain (ish)
Survival brain (ish)
The Brain- on 3 Levels
Dr. Daniel Siegel, known for his work in interpersonal neurobiology, developed a great way of understanding basic neuroanatomy through what he calls, “The hand model of the brain”. (Watch the Video)
The brain and how it works can be very intimidating. However, I like Dr. Seigel’s hand model because it quickly and easily explains the important parts and functions in a zoomed out way that just makes sense.
Looking at your hand, balled into a fist with your thumb tucked inside, consider your fist to be representative of your whole brain. The outside of your fist, the top of your hand, and your fingers folded over represents the cortex - the rational thinking, reasoning, and pattern/map-making part of the brain. When the fingers are lifted up and the thumb remains tucked in on the palm, we can think of the thumb as the Limbic system or the emotion and memory part of the brain. When the thumb is moved out and the hand is in an open manner, the palm represents the brainstem where your survival brain lives. Your wrist moving down towards your elbow represents the spinal cord, this can be thought of as the information highway as it links the body and the brain and sends signals from the brain down the spinal cord and out through the rest of the peripheral nervous system.
When thinking about the brain in this hand model way, the thumb area- the Limbic system- is important as it acts as a bridge between the cortex (top) and the brainstem (bottom). When a person is upset, what therapists sometimes call unregulated and Dr. Seigel describes as “flipping the lid”, the layers of the brain lose the ability to fluidly communicate up and down in its three levels.
Why is this important? - check back soon for the continuation-
Rational Brain
The rational brain is the very outer part of the brain and allows humans to think critically, use logic and reason, make sense or sensory input, and derive meaning from experience. The front area or part of the brain helps with something called executive functioning which is the ability to plan out tasks and manage time in a logical and reasonable way. Often survivors of developmental trauma have a difficult time with executive functioning and, sadly, are commonly misdiagnosed with Attention Hyperactivity Deficit Disorder.
Brown, N., Brown, S., Briggs, R., Germán, M., Belamarich, P. and Oyeku, S., 2017. Associations Between Adverse Childhood Experiences and ADHD Diagnosis and Severity. Academic Pediatrics, 17(4), pp.349-355.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 2021. Data And Statistics About ADHD | CDC. [online] Available at: <https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/adhd/data.html> .
Read below for a little more science.
Scientifically called the cerebrum, or forebrain, the rational brain is the largest part of the brain. It is divided into two hemispheres, the right and the left, that are connected by a sort of bridge called the corpus callosum. The rational brain has several layers. You’ve likely heard of the top layer as different lobes of the brain; frontal, temporal, parietal, and occipital.
Each lobe is responsible for many different functions and does not work alone. But for simplicity, it’s easiest to think of them as generally in charge of certain functions.
Frontal- thinking and reasoning, much of personality lives in this lobe
Temporal- the outer layer is responsible for language and hearing, while deeper into the brain, the hippocampus is responsible for memory formation, learning, and feelings
Parietal- balance, sensory processing- touch, taste, temperature, pain, and pressure.
Occipital- home of the primary visual cortex- vision
All of these parts work together allowing for higher-order processes like thinking, planning, reasoning, and language as well as processing sensations picked up by our 5 senses; sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell.
Deeper into the cerebrum is an area of the brain called the diencephalon, this area contains the thalamus, hypothalamus, and pineal gland.
Again thinking of these structures and their functions in simplified terms each of these areas regulate certain hormones:
Thalamus- controls sleep, but it also serves as the main information assembly and routing station taking in information from lower parts of the brain and sending them up to the relevant outer cortical areas.
Hypothalamus- just under the thalamus, this small area of the brain is the major control area for the autonomic nervous system. >>>Create a tab in your memory for this- It’s important and we will get back to it a little further down the page<<<
Pineal gland- this tiny area, about the size of a rainbow sprinkle or a piece of rice has made some waves in the media in the past few years. Its main job is to regulate your sleep-wake cycles by producing a hormone called melatonin.
Basal ganglia- is responsible for parts of motor function.
Emotional Brain
The emotional brain is the control center for emotions, motivation, learning, and memory. This is where attachment functions that are critical for our survival as a species are based. The three biggest brain structures in this area that are helpful to know are called the amygdala, thalamus, and the hippocampus.
The amygdala is the first responder for emotion, it helps us convey affect - showing on our face and in our body how we are feeling- as well as more nuanced safety based judgements of whether we can trust someone or perceive if a situation is threatening or not.
The thalamus helps us process emotions like fear, sadness, disgust, happiness, and pleasure. It does this by helping our brain process nearly all the sensory input we receive and then sends the relevant information on to the rational part of the brain.
Last, the hippocampus is where the brain processes and packages most of our memory that is stored up in parts of the rational brain. This memory is coded by more or less intensity from signals coming from the amygdala and coded with connection to senses from the thalamus.
Read below for a little more science.
>> The Limbic System <<
This infamous area of the brain is responsible for your emotional and behavioral response to life and manages all your survival needs. It lets you know when your hungry, drives the urge to reproduce and care for children, and helps you when you are in real or perceived danger through fight/flight/freeze/fawn responses.
Hippocampus- this part helps create memories and sends them to be stored in other parts of the cerebral cortex. Often the memories formed here are associated with different senses, for example the certain smell of a candle might be linked to a certain memory or category of memories.
Amygdala- the emotion central command- this area is powerful and deals in strong basic emotions such as pleasure, fear, anxiety, and anger. The amygdala attaches emotions to memories and can modulate how strong or intense a memory is by the level of emotion attached to it. This area is most know for it’s relationship with fear and fear based memories.
The limbic system also shares the cerebral cortex’s basal ganglia, thalamus, and hypothalamus.
Midbrain
This small area is at the very top of the brainstem. It serves as the highway for passing information from the spinal cord up to the forebrain where all that thinking stuff happens.
The midbrain has three major parts
Colliculi (co-lick-u-lie)- processes visual and auditory signals before passing them to the occipital and parietal respectfully.
The top of the Tegmentum- helps keep up alert and plays a role in pain suppression.
Cerebral peduncles and the substantia nigra- play a role in coordination and help send signals within the central nervous system >>>Create a second tab in your memory for this- It’s important too and we will get back to it a little further down the page<<<
Survival Brain
This area of the brain is crucial because it is what regulates our basic bodily functions like heart rate and breathing. Further, most of the 12 cranial nerves are found here. Research shows that one of these 12 cranial nerves, the vagus nerve, can be the key to unlocking trauma in the body and healing the body and the brain- more on this later as The Sand Brain Portal develops.
This part of the brain can make us impulsive as reactive when we are stuck operating in survival mode.
Some clues that someone is operating from this part of their brain and not fluidly up into the two higher parts of the brain can look like:
Less focus
Memory issues
Mind and body fatigue
Being reactive without much or any time between something happening and their emotional activation that can seem out of proportion to the event.
Diminished self-care- struggling to shower, eat, change clothes, get outside, or be active
Zoning out - dissociation
Withdraw and isolation
Read below for a little more science.
Hindbrain
The base of the brain, sometimes called the hindbrain or the reptilian brain, is the oldest part of the brain. This part of the brain includes the Pons, Cerebellum, Medulla oblongota, and the spinal cord.
The Pons regulates all the information coming up from the spinal cord.
Cerebellum is like it’s own tiny brain under our bigger brain. It has tightly packed nerves that process lots of sensory information but it’s most important function is helping coordinate voluntary movement, balance, and posture.
Medulla oblongota is the control center for autonomic functions like heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing. It also is responsible for different involuntary reflexes such as sneezing and swallowing.
“The person then stays in a state of acute and then chronic arousal and dysfunction in the central nervous system. Traumatized people are not suffering from a disease in the normal sense of the word- they have become stuck in an aroused state. It is difficult if not impossible to function normally under these circumstances.”
― Peter A. Levine
Which way do we go?
Top Down
Bottom Up
Coming soon
Sandtray and the Brain
Coming soon.
DvT and the Brain
Developmental Transformations
Coming soon
Brain Body Trauma Informed Evidenced Based Theories
Polyvagal
Coming Soon
Neurosequential Developmental
Coming Soon
Somatic Experiencing
Coming soon
