BrainstemIt is the foundation of the brain, and the brain stem can already work at full speed when a newborn baby is born. From the perspective of attachment relationship, it has little to do with a person's learning and experience, but the vagus nerve, the 10th cranial nerve it emits, is closely related to the level of arousal of the individual. Individuals will be in a fight-or-flight posture when awakened at high levels; At low arousal levels, they are in a state of relaxation, feeling safe, and social. When a person's fascinated nervous system is traumatized, there will be confusion in the response, either it is easy to touch no matter how big or small the stimulus is, or it is frozen, dissociated, dazed, and there is a posture of not knowing how to respond. Studies have shown that people with autism have difficulty socializing because they feel insecure, and their fascination nerves often have problems with decreased tone or underdeveloped myelin. Survivors of traumatic events are also prone to a flimge-on, or dazed reaction, speculating that they may have suffered damage to the vagus nerve during intense trauma.
Limbic systemIt is the "emotional brain", for secure attachment, it is emotional to feel safe, and only then will there be a sense of security. There are two structures and emotions in the limbic system that are closely related: the "amygdala" and the "hippocampus". The amygdala allows us to assess the sense of input in less than a second, especially in situations related to safety and threat. The amygdala is like an alarm, and when it smells dangerous, the alarm goes off, and the hypothalamus uses the neuroendocrine pathway to make the whole person's body and behavior respond quickly.
So how does the amygdala recognize danger?
The amygdala learns through life experiences, especially those memories with strong emotions that are stored by the amygdala for quick identification and evaluation of the environment and others. These assessments are biologically universal and are also determined by the specific experiences of the individual. These memories are stored after the baby is born, before language appears; Or even if an individual has the ability to speak, but encounters a traumatic event, these events are stored in the same way as the pre-linguistic period. This way of storing memories is often outside of the individual's awareness. The individual is deeply affected by it, but is unable to extract, touch, or discuss this part. Cognition derived from such memories is biased in judging the situation in which it is encountered. For example, a person experiencing attachment trauma may also interpret the other person's neutral, even positive, facial expressions as a danger.
The hippocampus, on the other hand, requires children to begin to function at the age of two or three. The main role of the hippocampus is to convert short-term memories into long-term memories, which can be retrieved, discussed, and conscious. Thus, the hippocampus can act as a coordinator of the amygdala. For example, when the amygdala sees a snake, it immediately feels fear, triggering a series of reactions in the body; But the seahorse tells it that the snake is a ** snake and then knows it's just a false alarm. Because the hippocampus has a memory function, the more you experience, the more and more extensive cognition you have, and the amygdala will constantly adjust to function. This is the reason why the more experience and knowledge a person has, the more objective he will be able to make a more objective assessment of reality.
In a secure attachment relationship, the hippocampus matures gradually. However, if the child suffers from either intense or prolonged attachment trauma, the hippocampus may temporarily lose function or be developmentally restricted, making it less able to resist the amygdala's overreaction. This can also be explained by the fact that individuals with poor attachment relationships in the early years often interpret the behavior and attitude of others more as malicious, thus activating the defensive function. Because, their amygdala is always "alarm bells".
Psychological** allows the patient to recall or re-experience fears and hurts from early childhood or traumatic situations in a safe counseling relationship, so that they can be brought to the consciousness of the person to discuss and transform, digest and process these strong emotions. As a result, the amygdala's excessive autoreflexes are slowed down.
Cerebral cortexIt is the latest mature brain structure, which gradually matures through the accumulation of experience and new learning, and is called the "rational brain". The cerebral cortex is divided into the frontal lobe at the front of the head, the parietal lobe at the top of the head, the temporal lobe on both sides, the occipital lobe at the occipital part, and the insular lobe located deep in the frontal, temporal, and parietal lobes. Closely related to attachment are the frontal and insular lobes.
The frontal lobes are responsible for the language and motor functions of the human body, because the emergence of language functions, conscious thoughts, plans, memories, directed actions, attention, and abstract reasoning are called possible. It makes it possible for individuals to be aware of themselves and to reflect on themselves, and is the neural basis for the formation of a reflective self and a conscious self. The frontal lobe is divided into the pregyrus (motor area) and the prefrontal area (non-motor area). Among them, the prefrontal lobe is most closely related to attachment.
The prefrontal lobe is divided into frontal pole, dorsolateral region, superior frontal gyrus, middle frontal gyrus, inferior frontal gyrus, orbital gyrus and other areas, which is the latest mature structure in human development, almost fully mature at about 20 years old, it occupies 29% of the entire cerebral cortex area, is a key brain region associated with many higher cognitive functions, and has extensive neural connections with other cerebral cortex and subcortical structures. At the same time, the prefrontal lobe is closely related to a person's mood and personality.
In 1848, American worker Phineas Gage was in an accident when he was pierced through the head with an iron rod, and the wound went diagonally from the left side of the face, through the back of the left eye, the back of the forehead bone, and through the skull on the left side, injuring the prefrontal lobes, including the orbital gyrus. He miraculously survived, but his temperament changed greatly, and a person who was originally conscientious and responsible, friendly, and well-liked became a stubborn, willful, capricious, and rude person. As a result, it is recognized that a person's temperament and prefrontal lobe are closely related.
In the history of medical development, there has also been a popular surgical method to remove the patient's prefrontal cortex in order to eliminate the manic symptoms of mental illness. However, although this method can calm the patient, it also makes the patient become numb and like the walking dead, "although he is alive, his soul has disappeared", and he is finally spurned and abolished.
The function of the dorsolateral prefrontal region allows us to consciously think about past experiences, which helps us solve current problems, make decisions, and try to make sense of things.
The orbital gyrus also has a function similar to that of the hippocampus, and can also tune the early warning judgments made by the amygdala, and its tuning ability is to re-evaluate or correct the alarm of the amygdala by thinking about itself and the environment, which is the "thinking of the emotional brain". In a sense, it is an instinctive response to the amygdala, which has the effect of "braking". It not only regulates emotions, but also promotes self-knowledge and social relationships. It is also known as the "senior executive of the social-emotional brain". Patients with impaired or underfunctional orbital gyrus may have difficulty managing their emotions, making judgments about social signals to others, and their psychological states. The adolescent prefrontal lobe is not yet mature and therefore has the characteristic of impulsivity.
There is a cingulate gyrus at the intersection of the frontal lobe and limbic system, which is divided into anterior cingulate gyrus and posterior cingulate gyrus, the anterior cingulate gyrus also plays an important role in the process of attachment, emotional regulation and mentalization, and injury to the cingulate gyrus can cause mood disorders and feeding disorders. The most important function of the insula is the neural basis for the formation of empathy in the individual.
In the matter of attachment, although the functions of each part of the brain are somewhat different, it is an organic whole, with the characteristics of its overall work. This kind of work has three characteristics: (1) automatic contact. For example, by seeing a person's feet, I know that he is there. (2) Constant characterization. For example, my friend is a bearded man and he shaved his face today, but I still know that he is my friend, and I may not even notice that he shaved his face. Therefore, most of what you perceive does not come from your sensory system, but from your memory system. Without a representation of constancy, our world would be like the world in a baby's eyes: "dazzling and confusing." "(3) Hierarchical structure. There are 6 layers of neurons in all areas of the cortex, the lower 3 layers are more about the sensation of experiencing the input at this moment, and the upper 3 layers are combining the memory and the feeling of the current input to make an assessment and**. However, the part of memory will be better than the perception of the moment. As Hawkins puts it, "A lot of psychology is based on early life experiences, attachments, and the consequences of parenting, because that's when the brain is just beginning to model the world." ”