Training the brain to treat itself is a promising therapy for traumatic stress. The training uses an auditory or visual signal that corresponds to the activity of a particular brain region, called neurofeedback, which can guide people to regulate their own brain activity.
However, treating stress-related disorders requires accessing the brain's emotional hub, the amygdala, which is located deep in the brain and difficult to reach with typical neurofeedback methods. This type of activity has typically only been measured using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which is costly and poorly accessible, limiting its clinical use.
A study published in the current issue of Biological Psychiatry tested a new imaging method that provided reliable neurofeedback on the level of amygdala activity using electroencephalography (EEG), and allowed people to alter their own emotional responses through self-regulation of its activity.
...
The researchers built upon a new imaging tool they had developed in a previous study that uses EEG to measure changes in amygdala activity, indicated by its "electrical fingerprint." With the new tool, 42 participants were trained to reduce an auditory feedback corresponding to their amygdala activity using any mental strategies they found effective.During this neurofeedback task, the participants learned to modulate their own amygdala electrical activity. This also led to improved downregulation of blood-oxygen level dependent signals of the amygdala, an indicator of regional activation measured with fMRI.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @09:33PM
42 participants, you know we're finding some interesting stuff here!
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday September 14 2016, @09:35PM
Honestly, that's better than some fMRI studies I've seen reported.
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(Score: 2, Disagree) by maxwell demon on Wednesday September 14 2016, @09:59PM
Empathy is emotion, right? And if I remember correctly, what is special for psychopaths is that they can voluntarily shut down their empathy.
So is this a method of creating psychopaths?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by TrumpetPower! on Wednesday September 14 2016, @10:05PM
No, it's not.
But there's a good chance this study could point to a method you could use to turn down your own paranoia.
Cheers,
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
(Score: 3, Informative) by stormwyrm on Thursday September 15 2016, @03:01AM
Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Thursday September 15 2016, @06:11AM
That's questionable. The human brain doesn't normally allow a person to fake emotional responses without them becoming real responses. It's the basic underpinning of various behavioral therapies. A person who is completely lacking in empathy isn't going to be able to fake empathy. How would they even know what response to give if they weren't feeling anything at all?
There's still a ton of BS in the mental health profession that's in need of debunking and this notion that psychopaths have no empathy at all is something that's badly in need of support. It's certainly not consistent with every day observations of psychopaths.
Sociopaths on the other hand are a completely different matter.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Thursday September 15 2016, @06:12PM
How would you personally define the difference between sociopaths and psychopaths then? I thought the terms were often considered interchangeable, although I would consider that "psychopath" is more strongly associated with the tendency to actually cause harm to others. I'd imagine that's more a pop sci interpretation of it than anything else though.
Note that according to wikipedia 'no psychiatric or psychological organization has sanctioned a diagnosis titled "psychopathy"'.
"rancid randy has a dialogue with herself[...] Somebody help him!" -- Anonymous Coward.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @10:06PM
Isn't it the same thing?
(Score: 3, Funny) by takyon on Wednesday September 14 2016, @10:28PM
It's biosimilar.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @10:30PM
Yes, but neurofeedback is more specific to the brain. The summary isn't well written. There are a lot of phrases that can be interpreted in multiple ways thus making it difficult to understand correctly.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by archfeld on Wednesday September 14 2016, @10:53PM
"allowed people to alter their own emotional responses through self-regulation of its activity."
In other words develop some patience and self discipline, stop expecting instant gratification, and quit blaming everything on ADD, which while valid for some I am sure, has become the general answer to the I want it all NOW prevailing attitude. Smart phones and the availability of electronic media anywhere has led to a whole group of people who can't regulate themselves nor deal with downtime.
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
(Score: 4, Funny) by ilPapa on Wednesday September 14 2016, @11:05PM
And blame it on the SJWs instead.
You are still welcome on my lawn.
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Wednesday September 14 2016, @11:18PM
Well if womyn could just shut down their self-respect and sense of smell we'd all be okay.
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @11:38PM
Self-respect is OK, sense of smell is OK... It's the flapping thing between their nose and chin that needs an off switch.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @11:49PM
Is it too much to ask that you wash your thing with soap and water?
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Reziac on Thursday September 15 2016, @04:02AM
Mental illness has become a fashion statement.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Francis on Thursday September 15 2016, @06:16AM
Not really. Mental illness remains highly stigmatized in virtually all levels of society in virtually every culture. I'm not aware of any place in the world where it would be accurate to describe it as a fashion statement.
Even mental illnesses that are common like depression remain heavily stigmatized even though most people will suffer from bouts of minor depression at some point. And major depression itself remains a common disorder. Or various anxiety disorders, most folks suffer from minor anxiety at some point, but most folks still fail miserably to understand what anxiety disorders are really like.
It's more accepted now and better understood than it was 50 years ago, but calling it a fashion statement is not even remotely accurate.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday September 15 2016, @06:44AM
I was thinking of the SJW camps, where it is indeed fashionable to have depression, or PTSD, or some other woe-is-me trauma -- and where they pretty clearly do not want to get well. That's how I became convinced that most of these people have succumbed to the fad of mental illness (whether or not they actually have one, which many probably do not) -- because it's shown off like a badge of poor-me, and they find all sorts of reasons why they can't be treated. Basically, they brag about it and try to one-up one another. Oh, and Patreon.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Thursday September 15 2016, @05:31PM
It sounds like maybe you have a specific personal experience about this. If so then I'm sorry for you; dealing with charlatans and sociopaths isn't fun. Although I would say that that sort of attention-seeking is itself a disorder that we aren't good at diagnosing or treating. A disorder that definitely is not concentrated among so-called SJW camps, but in fact is very common among high-ambition power seekers like the executive types. The kind of attention seeking that you are talking about, however, is based on taking cheap advantage of the kindness of others instead of any kind of hard work.
Whomever it is that you met is destructive to society as a whole, but even more destructive to the groups fighting to de-stigmatize mental illness. To those groups, such an individual leeches on the goodwill of others and gives a terrible face to people who really just want to make the world a better place. These are probably even entire subreddits of cargo-cult "SJW" types who don't actually care about any of that and just like to jockey for fake status.
But that doesn't mean that mental illness isn't a real problem. And where there is suffering in the world, we are morally obligated to do what we can to help. At a bare minimum, we must not make the suffering worse. I'll give you an example of the kind of suffering that we must work to alleviate.
One of the worst mental health problems we face in the United States is the trauma experienced by our war veterans. The same people who went to combat enemies of the United States, who fought to protect the freedoms that we enjoy, come back home as some of the most broken people in our society. We have a duty to those veterans to ease all of the consequences of combat, and while we're doing better at resolving lost limbs or other physical injuries we do pretty poorly at dealing with the mental aspect. The invisible scars of watching your best friend jump on a grenade to save your life - an experience which produces intense, profound feelings of loss, feelings of guilt for being the one who lived, and an ongoing sense of horror that manifests in alcoholism and terrible angry outbursts seemingly out of nowhere.
Relieving the suffering of mental illness begins with well-identified issues like these, and continues with diagnosable and treatable conditions like bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and non-combat related PTSD. It continues with management of less well-defined conditions like depression and anxiety. Unfortunately our mental health system is piss-poor; psychiatrists often practice less scientific medicine than more well-known pseudo-scientific practitioners like chiropractors. They will prescribe the fancy new depression pill that the pharmaceutical rep showed them last month without bothering to properly diagnose anything, despite the fact that the fancy new pill is only supposed to work in a specific 12% of patients diagnosed with clinical depression with the same underlying problem. And while most people with depression are facing life issues and not chemical imbalances, the medical insurance system makes it cheaper to get pills that alter brain chemistry than to see a therapist that can help you know what positive changes you can make to lead a happier, healthier life.
We've got a lot of room for improvement, and it starts with accepting that not everyone is a charlatan. That much of the time we can do real good for the hurt and suffering when we look past the charlatans. That charlatanry is often its own issue that needs treatment. My preferred method for treating the sociopathy that underlies most charlatanry is rhetoric. It may not convince the person who needs help, but at least their inevitable failure to make meaningful points will prove to everyone else that we are dealing with a leech to society and not, in fact, a so-called Warrior fighting for Social Justice.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday September 15 2016, @07:40PM
Not just one individual; whole swaths of 'em, particularly congregated in forums dedicated to certain vocations. (We are, amazingly, somewhat saner here on Soylent... possibly because we don't validate and enable weep-wail poor-me.) I'm staff/moderator on one of 'em; the site owner disapproves of snowflaking (especially having had a previously-owned forum hijacked by SJWs), so part of my job is to discourage it without pissing 'em off. :/
I don't disagree with what you say (the "cargo cult SJWs", a wonderful name for them, are indeed perhaps the worst thing that could have happened to all of mental health) but it's to where I no longer take claims of mental illness at their word. And we're developing a culture where instead of helping people get well, we validate and enable dysfunctionality. How is that helpful to anyone? (Other than therapists who make a good living on perpetual clients.)
I think we spend too much time trying to fix the visible psych effects, and not enough effort looking for underlying causes, which are more often biochemical than traumatic. Frex, PTSD has been ID'd as basically the brain's inability to dispose of stress metabolites due to a missing enzyme -- which is a genetic defect. Having ID'd the specific biochemical deficit means it can be pharma-targeted correctly, instead of shotgunned with a drug that only really works on some small subset (probably because they have some *different* genetic flaw). Until that becomes the norm, psych drugs are at best a wild guess, and at worst -- well, we all know of people who went off the deep end after being prescribed antidepressants.
[Insert canned rant about how ALWAYS, before anything else, thyroid function should be thoroughly assessed, and after than parathyroid. Cuz if that system isn't normal, nothing else will work quite right -- it affects *everything* -- and drugs may not perform as expected, sometimes tragically so.]
I have a friend, Vietnam vet, who was twice sole survivor of his unit. So, yeah. Veterans freely traded their lives (or potentially so) for the rest of us; we need to hold up our end of the bargain.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Thursday September 15 2016, @06:22AM
There's a correlation there. I used to live in China and behaviors that would result in a diagnosis of ADHD in the US is more or less the norm over there. The most probable reason is that they don't spend the years that Americans do making their own decisions and mistakes. Basically until they're adults the parents and teachers make damn near all the decisions. Even as adults the bosses make all the decisions at work. The kids will have a small amount of time in which to do things they enjoy doing, most of the rest of the time is school and studying up for their exams.
I'd literally see the locals make foolish choices and then be completely incapable of drawing the connection between being really, really shitty to the foreigners and then not be able to retain decent foreign workers. It's not exactly rocket science that if you behave like an abusive prick that anybody that has other options will leave. Hell, the whole work environment over there is based upon the notion of people just not showing up to work one day when they move on to another job, but somehow foreigners were expected to put up with that garbage.
(Score: 1) by TrentDavey on Thursday September 15 2016, @04:30PM
If you don't have trouble "regulating your amygdala" then it's easy to tell others who do have trouble, how they should do it.
Sensory input has a direct route to the amygdala and it generates emotions instantly - it's what kept us alive when we heard a rustling in the bushes. Then slowly, the executive self processes the sensory input and says "Oh crap it's a tiger! Keep running!" or "Oh, it's only Grog taking a whizz, I can stop." and then persuades the amygdala to cool it. Trouble comes when we can't get it cooled down after what was some obviously innocuous event and our amygdala keeps on firing. Mindfulness one way to help interrupt this escalating, high alert state before it gets to be a problem. The brain training here also seems to be another way to "unlearn" irrational, goofy responses to jacked up emotions.
(Score: 2) by archfeld on Thursday September 15 2016, @06:44PM
True, and I don't mean to make light of people with real issues, but it seems like in this day and age of bubble wrapped PC children, any form of discipline, self or otherwise, has been discarded in favor of a chemical fix as put forth by big pharma. Can't pay attention take this pill, feeling anxious or upset try this pill. Life is uncertain, unfair and full of pitfalls that have to be navigated, and children need to learn to deal with disappointment. It isn't going away anytime soon...
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Wednesday September 14 2016, @11:31PM
With MRI Technique, Brain Scientists Induce Feelings About Faces [soylentnews.org]
I left a comment there about portable EEG equipment.
(Score: 2) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Thursday September 15 2016, @03:54PM
Is "modulate their own amygdala electrical activity" what they're calling mediation now?
(E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Thursday September 15 2016, @06:29PM
Came for Firefly reference, leaving disappointed.