Learning to Turn Down Your Amygdala Can Modify Your Emotions

Summary: Researchers report downregulating amygdala activity may improve behavioral emotion regulation.

Source: Elsevier.

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 major advancement of this new tool is the ability to use a low-cost and accessible imaging method such as EEG to depict deeply located brain activity,” said both senior author Dr. Talma Hendler of Tel-Aviv University in Israel and The Sagol Brain Center at Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, and first author Jackob Keynan, a PhD student in Hendler’s laboratory, in an email to Biological Psychiatry.

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.

In another experiment with 40 participants, the researchers showed that learning to downregulate amygdala activity could actually improve behavioral emotion regulation. They showed this using a behavioral task invoking emotional processing in the amygdala. The findings show that with this new imaging tool, people can modify both the neural processes and behavioral manifestations of their emotions.

Image shows the location of the maygdala in the brain.
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. NeuroscienceNews.com image is for illustrative purposes only.

“We have long known that there might be ways to tune down the amygdala through biofeedback, meditation, or even the effects of placebos,” said John Krystal, Editor of Biological Psychiatry. “It is an exciting idea that perhaps direct feedback on the level of activity of the amygdala can be used to help people gain control of their emotional responses.”

The participants in the study were healthy, so the tool still needs to be tested in the context of real-life trauma. However, according to the authors, this new method has huge clinical implications.

The approach “holds the promise of reaching anyone anywhere,” said Hendler and Keynan. The mobility and low cost of EEG contribute to its potential for a home-stationed bedside treatment for recent trauma patients or for stress resilience training for people prone to trauma.

About this neuroscience research article

Source: Rhiannon Bugno – Elsevier
Image Source: NeuroscienceNews.com image is in the public domain.
Original Research: Abstract for “Limbic Activity Modulation Guided by Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging–Inspired Electroencephalography Improves Implicit Emotion Regulation” by Jackob N. Keynan, Yehudit Meir-Hasson, Gadi Gilam, Avihay Cohen, Gilan Jackont, Sivan Kinreich, Limor Ikar, Ayelet Or-Borichev, Amit Etkin, Anett Gyurak, Ilana Klovatch, Nathan Intrator, and Talma Hendler in Biological Psychiatry. Published online August 24 2016 doi:10.1016/j.biopsych.2015.12.024

Cite This NeuroscienceNews.com Article

[cbtabs][cbtab title=”MLA”]Elsevier. “Learning to Turn Down Your Amygdala Can Modify Your Emotions.” NeuroscienceNews. NeuroscienceNews, 12 September 2016.
<https://neurosciencenews.com/amygdala-emotion-neuroscience-5018/>.[/cbtab][cbtab title=”APA”]Elsevier. (2016, September 12). Learning to Turn Down Your Amygdala Can Modify Your Emotions. NeuroscienceNews. Retrieved September 12, 2016 from https://neurosciencenews.com/amygdala-emotion-neuroscience-5018/[/cbtab][cbtab title=”Chicago”]Elsevier. “Learning to Turn Down Your Amygdala Can Modify Your Emotions.” https://neurosciencenews.com/amygdala-emotion-neuroscience-5018/ (accessed September 12, 2016).[/cbtab][/cbtabs]

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Abstract

Limbic Activity Modulation Guided by Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging–Inspired Electroencephalography Improves Implicit Emotion Regulation

The amygdala has a pivotal role in processing traumatic stress; hence, gaining control over its activity could facilitate adaptive mechanism and recovery. To date, amygdala volitional regulation could be obtained only via real-time functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a highly inaccessible procedure. The current article presents high-impact neurobehavioral implications of a novel imaging approach that enables bedside monitoring of amygdala activity using fMRI-inspired electroencephalography (EEG), hereafter termed amygdala-electrical fingerprint (amyg-EFP). Simultaneous EEG/fMRI indicated that the amyg-EFP reliably predicts amygdala-blood oxygen level–dependent activity. Implementing the amyg-EFP in neurofeedback demonstrated that learned downregulation of the amyg-EFP facilitated volitional downregulation of amygdala-blood oxygen level–dependent activity via real-time fMRI and manifested as reduced amygdala reactivity to visual stimuli. Behavioral evidence further emphasized the therapeutic potential of this approach by showing improved implicit emotion regulation following amyg-EFP neurofeedback. Additional EFP models denoting different brain regions could provide a library of localized activity for low-cost and highly accessible brain-based diagnosis and treatment.

“Limbic Activity Modulation Guided by Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging–Inspired Electroencephalography Improves Implicit Emotion Regulation” by Jackob N. Keynan, Yehudit Meir-Hasson, Gadi Gilam, Avihay Cohen, Gilan Jackont, Sivan Kinreich, Limor Ikar, Ayelet Or-Borichev, Amit Etkin, Anett Gyurak, Ilana Klovatch, Nathan Intrator, and Talma Hendler in Biological Psychiatry. Published online August 24 2016 doi:10.1016/j.biopsych.2015.12.024

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  1. The limbic system and my brain injury recovery process or what 40 years living with a brain injury has taught me.
    Our brains control our ability to think, talk, move, and breathe. In addition to being responsible for our senses, emotions, memory, and personality, our brain allows every part of our body to function even when we’re sleeping.
    The brain can be hijacked by the limbic system after our brain injuries.
    Understanding the role stress plays on triggering the limbic system fight or flight response is critical for people to learn about after our brain injuries.
    Brain injuries are often described as either traumatic or acquired based on the cause of the injury.
    Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is an insult to the brain, not of a degenerative or congenital nature, which is caused by an external physical force that may produce a diminished or altered state of consciousness, and results in an impairment of cognitive abilities or physical functioning. It can also result in the disturbance of behavioral or emotional functioning.
    When you injure your brain, you injure an important part of the body.
    A TBI can affect our ability to, think and solve problems, move our body and speak, and control our behavior, emotions, and reactions.
    Acquired brain injuries are caused by many medical conditions, including strokes, encephalitis, aneurysms, anoxia (lack of oxygen during surgery, drug overdose, or near drowning), metabolic disorders, meningitis, and brain tumors.
    Although the causes of brain injury differs, the effects of these injuries on a person’s life are quite similar.
    This is why understanding “what’s going on between our ears” is important after a brain injury for our recovery process.
    Information about the role the Sympathetic Nervous System plays in the brain injury recovery process is seldom talked about by the brain injury industry. They only treat the symptoms and not the causes of many problems we face after our brain injuries. This information is critical to understand and has great value for people with brain injuries and their families.
    The Sympathetic Nervous System – “limbic system and autonomic nervous system” creates many problems people with brain injuries face during our recovery process. If people with brain injuries don’t understand the Sympathetic Nervous System and how it works – family members react to our emotions and unwittingly create more stress for us without knowing the stress they are putting us through.
    This stress triggers the “limbic system’s fight or flight response” into action.
    We do not have any control over what we are reacting to because of the stress that is being generated by our actions.
    What happens next is – we react and they react, the stress builds and we lose control, get angry and have emotional meltdowns. This is because the “limbic system” is autonomic. The fight or flight response in the limbic system has been triggered and is in control because the limbic system is in “survival mode”.
    During any stressful situation our loved ones react to our “actions” and we react to theirs – which increases our stress during those hard and difficult times.
    We (family members/ people with brain injuries) get caught up in a reactionary mode instead of being proactive to keep the limbic system in check.
    If we set up daily routines and have structure in our lives we have a better chance of controlling stress and the situations that trigger the limbic system fight or flight response because of the stress we are under.
    If we do not control the stress, our loved ones will constantly be reacting to issues we have little control over. Learning meditation and relaxation techniques like mindfulness-based stress reduction can help to stay calm so the limbic system is managed.
    Mindfulness-based stress reduction can help with this and I encourage you to look this up on the internet because there is a lot to learn about this tool that can help us rebuild or lives after a brain injury.
    After our brain injuries “emotional outbursts, anger, and memory issues” are an expression for the problems caused by our limbic system fight or flight response under stress. By understanding how our emotions can get out of control we will have a better understanding of why we act and react to things that do not make any sense to us.
    There is a reason for all this madness and by learning the role the sympathetic nervous system plays in our recovery, the better chance we have to live full and rewarding lives again – after our brain injuries!

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