Brain changes Gaga said are associated with her dissociation

[Edonis 28,950]

Just now, Katie14 said:

What is HR?

Heart rate

[Bette Davis 12,742]

She's a popstar, not a psychiatrist 

I have a friend who recently called me and said she was having a dissociative episode brought on by too much stress and trauma.

I don't think they are exclusive and may possibly go hand in hand. Perhaps once hyperarousal becomes too intense for someone to process and handle, they can go into a dissociative state?

[ZombieMirror 299]

this cult is next LVL I don't think I would fine even a similar post in other fanbases sites 

[Miracle 14,068]

3 hours ago, Katie14 said:

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:

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"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."

 

 

 

As someone said above, the fight or flight irrational fear produced by the emotional rollercoaster trauma tends to bring  may just be the end of a dissociation process: after the immediate paralysis and unability to connect, a fight or flight fear may absorb the patient. It can be the other way around too. Both things are connected, as trauma related disorders are, basically, a mix of these two symptoms / coping mechanisms + depression. Anyway, as  Gaga didn't especifically say "she dissociates because of the amygdala hyperstimulation", as she was talking about her unability to cope emotions in general

 

 

[SilkSpectre0 547]

3 hours ago, 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. 

Well people can often fall into the third option with hyper arousal which is freeze which can then lead to a dissociative state. Basically no one is a cookie cutter case of anything. Mental illness is messy and no everyone fits the pattern exactly th same as everyone else. Gaga is trying to explain her experience with PTSD while also providing some explanation of it on a wider scale.

[moonboywow 3,136]

I still think she has disocciative identity disorder also known as multiple personalities 

[Katie14 4,828]

10 minutes ago, ZombieAphrodite said:

I still think she has disocciative identity disorder also known as multiple personalities 

I think she would have been upfront about it if she had it. She revealed everything else and specifically talked about not having any secrets. She talked about how she used her costumes and such as a way to become someone else so she could cope with her emotions. I guess that is sort of like a mild form of DID. Im not really familiar with the disorder though. 

[Mario Salas 973]

12 hours ago, VenusAsABoy said:

Throwback to 

I think she was stressed

[Werk 13,166]

This is too complex for me too understand. I need this in laid man words  

[Oriane 20,932]

16 hours ago, VenusAsABoy said:

Throwback to 

I wanted to post this but I didn't know if it was right 

[Katie14 4,828]

34 minutes ago, Werk said:

This is too complex for me too understand. I need this in laid man words  

Just read the bolded parts. 

[Werk 13,166]

34 minutes ago, Katie14 said:

Just read the bolded parts. 

Thank you  

[SilkSpectre0 547]

15 hours ago, ZombieAphrodite said:

I still think she has disocciative identity disorder also known as multiple personalities 

It doesn't seem so. Gaga seems aware of and in control of her identity and gaga and Stefani are not distinct enough. Other than the fashion her personality state is pretty similar in both.