The cerebral amygdala has a direct relationship with anxiety disorders. This has been known for a long time. However, in addition to this fact, there is another one as curious as it is striking. Neuroscientists have found that some people have larger tonsils, increasing the risk of mood disorders.
Can a person be born with this neurological disorder?Research shows that, in fact, this particularity is due to a very specific factor: having a complicated childhood and being under constant stress, whether by abuse, physical abandonment or emotional neglect.
- In other words.
- Our previous experiences and quality shape brain architecture.
- In addition.
- They configure it in a very unique way: if we go through stress in childhood.
- All the neurobiology related to the so-called “fear network” changes.
Regions such as the amygdala, hippocampus, and anterior dorsal cingulate cortex undergo minor changes that will increase the person’s risk of developing anxiety disorders in adulthood.
We’ll dive into this topic below
We all feel anxiety throughout our lives, and sometimes it’s very intense, realities like facing a job interview, taking an exam or giving a lecture put us to the test and putting us in this territory where fear, uncertainty and anguish about what’s going to happen.
These experiences, however complex they may seem, are quite normal, however, constant anxiety is not as normal.
Sometimes there is nothing concrete that triggers this situation, because the person constantly feels a feeling of threat that he cannot explain and that alters his whole reality, both physical and psychological, this anxiety is pathological and acts as a poison that diminishes human and potential health.
Phobias, post-traumatic stress disorder, generalized anxiety disorder?There are many anxiety-mediated psychological conditions that are limiting, so neuroscientists have been wondering for decades what is going on in our brains and what structures are involved in these difficult situations.
Let’s see what the studies say
Anxiety is not the result of the activity of a single brain structure; In fact, is it the result of one?Conversation? Among several different brain regions, creating what is called the fear network. We know that the name itself is scary.
To better understand it, let’s start by explaining something very simple: our brain is both emotional and rational, has very old domains that articulate and dominate all these processes related to our feelings, emotions and feelings, at the same time, our cerebral cortex. and, more specifically, frontal areas control cognitive and more reflective processes.
When someone has an anxiety disorder, their brain is dominated by the fear network, that is, the brain is “kidnapped” through a number of structures that limit their more logical and thoughtful thinking.
In addition, the cerebral amygdala controls this control, in fact, we know this since the 1990s, thanks to a study conducted at Yale University by Dr. Michael Davies.
Stanford University made a great discovery in 2013. Vinod Menon, a professor of psychiatry, discovered by MRI that there were people with much larger than average brain tonsils and, at the same time, they also had other factors related to each other.
The first was that most suffered from anxiety disorders; the second, who had experienced a traumatic or at least stressful childhood by factors such as abandonment, emotional abandonment, etc.
Therefore, it seems that having a larger-than-average amygdala causes connections to change with other regions of the brain responsible for the perception and regulation of emotions.
There is hyperactivity, i. e. the amygdala becomes more sensitive and there are more important problems when regulating fear, anxiety, anxiety, threatening feeling, etc. But Dr. Menon insists on one fact: going through a difficult childhood is not a direct cause of developing mood disorders in adulthood. There is a higher risk, a higher probability.
Knowing this, science has focused on regulating brain amygdala activities, new discoveries in this direction could provide valuable tools to treat anxiety, a condition we know is very present today.