Brain changes Gaga said are associated with her dissociation

[Katie14 4,828]

I posted about this in the other thread but nobody responded  Im really confused about this and im not sure if Gaga described something wrong or if i am misunderstanding.

She said she experiences dissociation, but the brain changes that she is describing is associated with being hyperaroused, the opposite of dissociation. This is the part I am referring to:

"I also experience something called dissociation which means that my mind doesn’t want to relive the pain so “I look off and I stare” in a glazed over state. As my doctors have taught me, I cannot express my feelings because my pre-frontal cortex (the part of the brain that controls logical, orderly thought) is overridden by the amygdala (which stores emotional memory) and sends me into a fight or flight response.  My body is in one place and my mind in another. It’s like the panic accelerator in my mind gets stuck and I am paralyzed with fear.

When this happens I can’t talk. When this happens repeatedly, it makes me have a common PTSD reaction which is that I feel depressed and unable to function like I used to."

I found this study:

"Lanius et al. (2010), followed by Lanius and colleagues (2012), compiled the neurobiological evidence for a dissociative subtype of PTSD. Their review of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) research suggested that while the majority of individuals with PTSD responded to hearing their personal trauma-scripts with high levels of psychological distress, physiological arousal, emotionality, and reexperiencing, and hyperarousal symptoms, a separate group of individuals responded to hearing their own trauma scripts with a notable absence of such symptoms and instead, showed symptoms of dissociation. The former group was characterized by heightened activity in limbic brain regions (e.g., the amygdala) and reduced activity in areas of the brain associated with emotional control and regulation (largely in pre-frontal regions).

[Dissociation] In contrast, across studies, Lanius et al. (2010, 2012) noted that the latter group showed evidence of emotional over-modulation, as suggested by heightened activation in pre-frontal brain regions and relatively less activity in the emotional/limbic areas of the brain in response to trauma cues. This provides initial evidence of potential differences in neurobiological functioning in individuals with versus without the subtype, though more research in this area is needed to evaluate the replicability of these patterns of brain activation and their specicity to the dissociative subtype.

http://www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/newsletters/research-quarterly/v24n4.pdf

Another study:

Spoiler

 

"Our first study involved 9 patients with sexual abuse– or motor vehicle accident–related PTSD and 9 controls who had a history of sexual abuse or motor vehicle accidents but in whom PTSD never developed. Figure 1 demonstrates that compared with controls, patients who relived their traumatic experience and had a hyperaroused response to the traumatic script exhibited significantly less activation in the rostral ACC and medial prefrontal cortex as well as in the thalamus and occipital cortices. Lower levels of ACC activation and medial prefrontal activation are consistent with previous PET studies of sexual abuse and combat-related PTSD. These brain activation patterns differ strikingly from those observed in a second study of 7 patients who dissociated in response to the traumatic script and of 10 trauma-exposed controls. Figure 2 shows that these dissociative patients had higher levels of brain activation in the rostral ACC and dorsal ACC, medial prefrontal cortex, and areas in the superior and middle temporal cortices.

The most remarkable findings in these 2 studies are the opposite patterns of brain activation. The more typical reexperiencing/hyperaroused group exhibited abnormally low activation in the medial anterior brain regions that are implicated in arousal modulation and emotion regulation more generally (ACC and medial prefrontal cortex), while the dissociative group exhibited abnormally high activation in these regions."

 

 

[weed 73,748]

Spoiler

I feel like most likely Gaga got a word wrong or mixed something up

 

[Gagas love 722]

Breathe

[Edonis 28,950]

Dissociation psychologically refers to the ability for a person to emotionally detatch themselves from a situation, or dissociate, as a way to cope with stress. It's often very severe trauma and stressful situation. People who are prone to severe trauma (repeated sexual assault, child abuse, etc.) and undergo it constantly tend to be better at dissociating oneself so that the immediate stressor is lessened. Often there is memory loss associated with the dissociative event, so the person doesn't fully remember the event that took place. The problem with that is that often these events arise in "episodes" and become very very vivid and realistic memories that leave people in states of physiological arousal. For example, someone who is a war veteran may experience an episode associated with PTSD and their fight or flight system (or autonomic state of hyperarousal) responds as if they were under war attacks right then and there. Their blood pressure spikes, heart rate, pulse, etc. That is the physiological arousal that the authors are talking about. It's different from dissociation because that is often used as a coping mechanism during trauma or when episodes of trauma memory arise. In terms of Gaga, I think she explained it well enough, just in a very lite way that may have jumbled some of the anatomical terms around. But the concept is correct. 

Sorry about the essay 😓😓😓

[Katie14 4,828]

3 minutes ago, Edonis said:

Dissociation psychologically refers to the ability for a person to emotionally detatch themselves from a situation, or dissociate, as a way to cope with stress. It's often very severe trauma and stressful situation. People who are prone to severe trauma (repeated sexual assault, child abuse, etc.) and undergo it constantly tend to be better at dissociating oneself so that the immediate stressor is lessened. Often there is memory loss associated with the dissociative event, so the person doesn't fully remember the event that took place. The problem with that is that often these events arise in "episodes" and become very very vivid and realistic memories that leave people in states of physiological arousal. For example, someone who is a war veteran may experience an episode associated with PTSD and their fight or flight system (or autonic state of hyperarousal) responds as if they were under war attacks right then and there. Their blood pressure spikes, heart rate, pulse, etc. That is the physiological arousal that the authors are talking about. It's different from dissociation because that is often used as a coping mechanism during trauma or when episodes of trauma memory arise. In terms of Gaga, I think she explained it well enough, just in a very lite way that may have jumbled some of the anatomical terms around. But the concept is correct. 

Sorry about the essay 😓😓😓

She may be experiencing hyperarousal and dissociation at different times. Im saying that the brain functions that she described is specifically associated with  hyperarousal and she associated it with dissociation. 

[Edonis 28,950]

Just now, Katie14 said:

She may be experiencing hyperarousal and dissociation at different times. Im saying that the brain functions that she described is specifically associated with  hyperarousal and she associated it with dissociation. 

But the description of what's going on was clearly dissociation. She may have said the physiology wrong but what she was feeling does match up with the definition of dissociation. You don't space out with the sympathetic nervous system kicking in. That's strictly dissociation

[Miel 15,009]

I think she also might have just made a simple semantic mistake, if anything.

[Pacify Him 9,073]

Throwback to 

[He8MyHeart 9,765]

2 minutes ago, VenusAsABoy said:

Throwback to 

This is exactly what I was thinking!

[Katie14 4,828]

11 minutes ago, Edonis said:

But the description of what's going on was clearly dissociation. She may have said the physiology wrong but what she was feeling does match up with the definition of dissociation. You don't space out with the sympathetic nervous system kicking in. That's strictly dissociation

Yes I agree. Or maybe she gets the sympathetic fight or flight reaction and it peaks and then she dissociates?

[KleinGa 18,177]

[Edonis 28,950]

24 minutes ago, Katie14 said:

Yes I agree. Or maybe she gets the sympathetic fight or flight reaction and it peaks and then she dissociates?

That's also possible. There are definite cases where a person will dissociate after experiencing a feeling of panic (seen with some fight/flight responses). 

[Katie14 4,828]

16 minutes ago, Edonis said:

That's also possible. There are definite cases where a person will dissociate after experiencing a feeling of panic (seen with some fight/flight responses). 

[Edonis 28,950]

1 minute ago, Katie14 said:

I guess this would be a good visual to show what she's talking about, however this could also show relative BP or HR as well. 

[Katie14 4,828]

1 minute ago, Edonis said:

I guess this would be a good visual to show what she's talking about, however this could also show relative BP or HR as well. 

What is HR?