More Mental Health Articles
Affect Regulation, Polyvagal States and PTSD
The neural systems in both humans and animals are organized to regulate, respond, and adapt to situations that are perceived to be safe, dangerous, or life threatening.
Perceptions are cellular responses to sensory signals interacting with the brain and central nervous system of mammals generated from both external as well as internal sources.
It is understood that the autonomic nervous system regulates a variety of organs and physiological processes in the body through specific neural circuits. According to animal research done by Stephen Porges, PhD, in The Polyvagal Theory The Vasovagal Complex (VVC), the mylinated mammalian vagus nervous system governs social, caring, and related calming behaviors of homeostastis.
The sympathetic nervous system, through the parasympathtic nervous system, governs alerting behaviors by increasing heart rate, dilating bronchi, inhibiting gastrointestinal functions, promoting vasoconstriction, increasing sweating and mucous, and activating catecholamines released from the adrenal medula and activating supra-diaphramatic organs in the head, face, neck, and heart.
The dorsal vagal complex governs the neural control of the sub-diaphragmatic visceral organs that enables immobilization behaviors (such as fainting, freeze response, organ shutdown associated with shock, cognitive dissociation, and death feigning behaviors).
Other scientific research has shown that the enteric nervous system governs the regulation of immune system functioning in the human brain through activation of a neuroimmune system circuitry, completing the psycho-neuro-gastro-immune system of trauma response.
Trauma response behaviors, which are seen in both animals and humans, are actually treated differently within veterinary and human health care systems.
In veterinary medicine, animals are treated for both the psychological and biological impacts of trauma. In humans, trauma response symptoms are considered “psychological” and are not associated with impaired biological functioning.
Mental health standards govern treatment of individuals with traumatic stress response, based on social interactions such as “witnessing, seeing, or engaging with others during a violent scenario.” The biological effects of acoustic trauma are not treated as part of PTSD or trauma response in humans.
In fact, all the meta analysis of the effects of PTSD on combat veterans and paramilitary forces focuses on “witnessing or seeing” and does not include the relative impact on the biophysiology of the human body secondary to cognitive processing of sound, noise, or the link between emotions and sound perception in ranges that cripple cellular functioning that lead to acoustic shock, death, or permanent hearing loss.
Unless combat veterans (and others such as first responders who are involved in combat war efforts or weapons discharge) are treated for the biological effects of cellular damage from acoustic sources, there will continue to be more and more deaths related to the mental torture that comes from witnessing and experiencing acoustic sound blasting and resultant cellular damage, making it difficult to have any real impact on healing trauma response victims.
