Brain Awareness Week (in March) is an annual celebration of the brain and all things brain science. The purpose of Brain Awareness Week is spreading information about the brain and brain science to celebrate the important progress that is being made in this field, as well as shining the light on the benefits of continued investigation of the brain.
The brain is the most complex organ in the human body, and consists of approximately 100 billion brain cells, or neurons. The brain is divided into many different areas, controlling many different functions. For instance, one region plans out and executes our movements, another is responsible for using and understanding language, while other parts process our sensory input (like hearing, seeing, tasting, smelling, touching) to make sense of the world. Anything we do, think, say, or feel, is the result of neural signals in the brain.
The brain stores and processes information – our joys, our happiness, our sadness, and our fears. It lets us experience the world around us through touch, taste, smell, sight, and hearing – it lets us appreciate beautiful landscapes and captivating music, and it lets us remember. It lets us move, create, and imagine. It lets us think, plan, organise, and reason. The human experience is processed by the brain.
Therefore, developments in brain science are incredibly beneficial to the field of psychology and mental health as a whole, as these developments help inform our treatments and how to improve mental well-being overall.
“It’s All In Your Head” – Breaking Down the Stigma
Thanks to the advances in brain science (or neurology) scientists have been able to investigate the brain on a much more detailed level than previous. Using various techniques we can now scan and image the brains of people to better understand the physical brain structures, as well as the function of the brain by seeing what areas of the brain lights up when certain tasks are completed.
Historically there has been a great deal of stigma around mental health, and a common fallacy is the “it’s all in your head” statement. Now we know that mental illness is “all in your head” in the same way that a broken leg is “all in your leg” or pneumonia is “all in your lungs”. It all relates back to biology. This has huge implications for breaking down the stigma around common mental health problems (like Anxiety, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Phobias, Depression, Bipolar Disorder) and neurodevelopmental differences (like Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Autism-Spectrum Disorders).
There are many structures and processes in the brain involved in mental health, and a complex interplay of these systems shape our experience – both great and not so great. A thorough review of how the brain is implicated in the various mental disorders / presentations would likely span multiple books, so for this post let’s look at the neuropsychological components of one of the most prevalent mental disorders – Anxiety.
Example: Anxiety – How the Brain Works
In each of the brain halves, underneath all the wrinkly bits – called gyri (folds) and sulci (grooves) – is the Limbic System. The limbic system deals with emotions and other behaviours that are important for survival (also known as the “Four F’s” – Feeding, Fleeing, Fighting, and Mating). An important part of the limbic system is the Amygdala, whose job it is to process emotions and emotional behaviour. If you have ever been anxious or angry, your amygdala was successfully doing it’s job.
If a lion jumps out of the bushes, your amygdala would immediately go into overdrive – its job is to keep us safe, and one of the main ways it does so is through the fight-or-flight response. We can try to fight off the lion with kicks and screams, or we can try to flee and hide from it.
The amygdala, when sensing danger, signals the hypothalamus which starts a process of releasing hormones into our body. These hormones affect our bodies in several ways. They provide extra energy to the muscles so we can run faster or fight better, they signal for the lungs to breathe faster, and they stop processes in the body that are unnecessary for immediate survival, like bladder control and digestion.
The effect of these hormones on the body is what we experience as anxiety symptoms. The energy in our muscles makes us shaky and restless, we breathe faster making us feel dizzy, our stomach feels full of butterflies or nauseous due to digestion stopping and the processing of that adrenalin.
Sometimes (most of the time) there is no lion, but instead there is a work presentation, a crowd, or talking to a stranger. The brain interprets the situation as dangerous, and the amygdala kicks in.
What we experience as anxiety is the body’s
cognitive and biological response to perceived danger.
Mental health is influence by cognitive and biological factors. It is important to remember that even though they may be referred to as mental disorders or mental conditions, the neurobiology plays a significant part in how and why we are experiencing a difficulty.
Your therapists here at Minding Family are well trained to help you develop amazing coping strategies and skills to manage any mental health or neurodevelopmental concerns.