The effect of trauma on the brain and how it affects behaviors | John Rigg | TEDxAugusta

I want to ask you to think back to some occasion in your life when you might have gotten in an argument with someone particularly someone that you loved you cared for a lot a family member a spouse a parent and really reacted really react it got so angry did things you said things maybe broke stuff said hurtful things and then later on reflected on your behavior and wondering what happened where did that come from I want to look at some of the factors that contribute to that type of overreaction that mechanism that hyper arousal that occurs hyper arousal anger hostility where does that come from what generates it I'm going to talk about stress okay stress as if as a factor that can influence behaviors and look at the anatomy of the human brain is actually we actually have two brains that are contributing to our behaviors two brains contributing to our behaviors and stress is particularly influential on one of them stresses noting that we think about right we don't come up with stress it is a reaction to the external environment so let me talk about the two brains I have a diagram here of this the cortex of the brain and this structure underneath the cortex of the brain which is labeled brain stem in here but I'm really talking to talk about the subcortical brain this entire structure here the cortex of the brain is what I'm going to call the human brain the intelligent brain it's where our personality is our individuality where we make choices of our mate what we eat we're kind of music we listen to what car we drive where we live what type of life we live we take in sensory information that's processed in the cortex and we take actions based on sensory information that's where our personality our individuality it's all centered in that cortical area note in the human brain it's actually the the by far the largest mass of the human brain is cortex okay we rule the world as humans why not because we perform animal functions better than any animals we're not bigger faster stronger than animals we think better we have the largest cortex and we rule the world but we're animals we eat make waste products and make babies and that behavior triggered by our primitive animal brain is sometimes responsible for triggering some of the behaviors that were not particularly fond of so this primitive animal brain what does it do well the brain reacts to situations whether we want it to or not particularly this animal brain which doesn't think it just reacts to the environment so if I if I said to you hey let's all go outside and race across Broad Street but don't your heart beat increase could you do it now you can think to yourself hey I'm going to stop my heart beat for 10 seconds but you can't do it the thought exists the thinking exists in the cortex the human brain but the animal brain is controlling your heartbeat and won't let you do it so you can think all you want about lowering your blood pressure and it won't happen that primitive animal brain is maintaining your heartbeat your breathing your digestion from the moment that you're born at any time I mean even pre pre birth you know as a fetus that no these structures start operating in that central nervous system primitive animal brain is operating non-stop until it until your death pretty amazing okay I'm gonna ask you to look at another way that that this primitive animal brain reacts the situations okay so this you know let's let's pick a picture a bunch of guys hanging out arguing about who's gonna win the Super Bowl on Sunday talking about cars whatever whatever men might want to talk about when they're involved in a conversation I'm a man so I look at you know I only have a male perspective on things but what you guys are sitting around talking and all of a sudden there that conversation this really attractive looking woman walks by with a inappropriately short miniskirt and an inappropriately tight t-shirt what's gonna happen to that conversation all right the little Snickers in yon is no not me man I don't look you know men will be attracted to that not because they're out there searching for mates married men might react that way okay but because of the fact there's an animal incident of sexual attraction why do advertisers put sexually attractive women in ads to attract attention to that ads so people go on buy stuff they don't need okay it's an animal instinct now I may be distracted at times but I'm married so I don't go out and chase the girl you know married men's committed men or in relationships might to be attracted might be it might be like a magnetic boom but back focus on hey I'm married yeah I think the Patriots are gonna lose or whatever you know whatever the conversation happens you know but the reaction and I don't know how women react to men I mean you know fortunately you you do react those ugly guys with that's good you know but that primitive sexual instinct is a really important behavioral driver of on a day to day basis you know male elephants are attracted to female elephants female frogs mate with male frogs all species mates sexual attractions basic animal instinct a more powerful animal instinct programmed in that primitive animal brain is survival and how do animals survive fight or flight okay much more powerful instinct so the primitive animal brain to review runs our body breathing digestion heartbeat blood maintains blood pressure and this program for primitive animal instincts that all animals have eating sexual attractions seeking safety and shelter and then that most powerful instinct survival fight-or-flight the cortex of the brain is our thinking brain it makes decisions it takes actions that those things okay based on sensory information it thinks it's where our memory is located all of our processing now my job on a daily basis is I work I'm a physician I work I'm the director of the traumatic brain injury for the military down here at Fort Gordon Eisenhower Army Medical Center and I'm gonna use some examples of what happens to soldiers when they're taken from the United States sent over to Iraq and Afghanistan and experience the traumatic experience of war and how does that experience impact their performance how does that experience impact their behaviors based on the influence that that traumatic experience has on their brain whether they wanted to or not okay so what they do is they go to a place like Iraq or Afghanistan what is the enemy trying to do to them when they're there kill him trying to keep the enemies trying to kill these men and women so their fight-or-flight the primitive animal instinct is ramped up and magnified turned on big time all the time not for like 20 minutes here in ten minutes here but non-stop for 24 24/7 through their entire time of deployment I was I was with the patient this morning seven deployments seven deployments 14 months minimum of those seven in those seven deployments hyperactivated fighter flight and when you're in a place where you know bad guys are trying to kill you having your fight-or-flight activated to respond real quickly is the best thing that could happen to you and it functions great when you're in a combat zone but now let's take that soldier and return him to the United States so you get on a plane come back to the US get off the plane hi I'm back home what part of the brain is recognizing the geographic shift back to the United States the cortex the intelligent human thinking brain but where was this hyper aroused fight-or-flight located and the primitive animal brain the subcortical brain specifically a structure called the amygdala which becomes hyper activated and triggers fight-or-flight now that was very very powerful and essential in a combat zone but the soldier now comes home and he's still hyperactivated so to give you an example I had one of my men went to it was home for a few months he was feeling pretty good he went to a rock and roll show in Atlanta hanging out in Atlanta I was doing ok with the crowds but all of a sudden boom fireworks go off BAM he bought he dives to the ground now he didn't hear the explosion ago that sounds like a bomb I'd better duck ok he reacted non-thinking so now let's look at the anatomy of the brain cause there's one more super important point to make in here that's fascinating sensory information comes in - you know we see here taste touch and smell that sensor information comes into our sense organs is sent to a structure in the brain except for smell which bypasses the thalamus but all the rest are sent to the thalamus which is a relay station that sends a signal to both the human intelligent cortical brain and the primitive animal brain so in this case of this explosion at a rock show the explosion gets to the cortex and the cortex is gonna think about exploding sounds like a bomb Whitman I'm in Atlanta oh my gosh the terrorists by the way the band still playing nobody's running for cover nobody saw romance fireworks roof I'm ok and the cortex could figure that out very quickly simultaneously that signal went to the animal brain the animal brain doesn't understand geography it's hyper activated it's hyperactivated particular to explosions which in war meant what I a DS rocket-propelled grenades mortars blood guts death body parts here's the second key point about this primitive animal brain number one it doesn't understand geography number two it's faster than the thinking brain the animal brain actually is physiologically wired to respond faster than the thinking brain so before the soldier can take that soldier was fireworks that explosion was fireworks boom he's on the ground diving for cover you know about the time he hits the ground he's going on like god I feel like a jerk down here you know because everybody else is up cheering and he's on the ground ok but it was a non thinking response you know non thinking response triggered by the animal brain which is wired to respond faster when you think about it from a survival perspective a survival perspective the faster we react the more likely you are to survive so indeed through an evolutionary period you know the human species has been around about 300,000 years but for 300 million years we have had animals have had a fight-or-flight reaction I don't know who figures this stuff out but that's what it says in the biological books 300 million years of a fight-or-flight you know the faster they react the more likely they are to survive the animal brain is not very smart it's fast it's fast the more the quicker you respond to dangerous threatening situations the more likely you ought to survive a child that grows up in an abused environment you could take them out of that home right and put them somewhere else but if he's experienced he or she has experienced significant abuse in that home that abuse is impacted their arousal system their primitive animal brain no matter how much in their cortical brain they may want to overcome that they are still reacting to situations programmed in that primitive animal brain but you can't change by thinking any more than you can change your heartbeat your blood pressure okay eat and hold your food your belly for four hours before you digest it so let me talk a little bit about irritability okay so there was a man and wife or at home and the wife asked her husband honey can you take out the trash for me sure maybe no problem I'll take out the garbage so the man he gets up took out the garbage did a good job cleaned up everything a nice came back in the house that down job done now meanwhile his wife walked off into another room and their two little children the two little children had spilt chocolate milk all over this beautiful brand-new white sofa she was angry now she's got this new sofa with big nasty stains on it she's not happy okay why they look these kids to break chocolate milk in here why did I get a white sofa my relatives are coming to visit I got this nasty stain on here boy is she angry she's not mad at her husband okay but she comes back to her husband with a me angry look on her face okay and now our husbands in a maybe fatigued stressed-out with you know stuff going on at work or whatever you know not particularly a great mood she comes back to him now and she got a angry look on her face and she goes did you take off that trash like I asked you yeah he starts cursing his way yelling at her Wow well what happened well how did she go how did she approach her husband aggressive hostile angry what's the fastest part of the brain to respond to sensory information coming in his angry face and angry tone of voice the fastest part of the brain that respond is what the primitive animal brain in order for that man to recognize hey that's my wife talking about the garbage he needs his memory in his cortex to recognize his wife and to recognize the English language did you take out the garbage so when he responded he didn't respond to his wife he responded to the aggressive tone of voice and the aggressive face that she presented now of course when he yells at his wife she don't like that okay so she barks at him and he barks back at her and now they're in a big argument over nonsense over nonsense they made a their intelligent thinking human brains made a decision hey I love you baby let's get married and live happily ever after let's have a wonderful life together your awesome husband daddy but now in the heat of the moment that intelligent decision and the primitive animal brain is reacted and gotten him into a situation that they're intelligent thinking brain never would have never would have when when the brain is hyper aroused if it's stressed out you know certainly this is a situation that I see in in in military personnel who have been involved in combat but you know everybody gets stressed out you know bills family relations neighbors making too much noise or whatever okay that hyper arousal that primitive animal brain is pumping out stress hormones interfering with sleep keeping you up it can hijack a memory because as you're thinking of all the stress even unconsciously remember I'm not talking about the conscious brain where you're thinking and plotting and using your cortex and probably a hyper arousal the animal brain that's been stimulated by some type of stuff okay could be trauma could be just day-to-day stuff that's accumulating and hard to manage but the stress hormones get released it activates that part of the brain and memory becomes difficult because concentration and attention it's not that the memory storage and recall is problematic 'since the attention is being diverted to all this other stuff ok the stress factors for example I'll have a lot of soldiers will tell me they have memory problems I was talking to a guy once in my office and we had started having a sports conversation and we get up and walking down the hall and I'm talking about you know the topic that we had been speaking about we got to the end that Holly goes doc and I told you my memory sucks I don't remember anything he just said well what happened was when I opened up the door we retrace our steps to analyze this so when I opened up the door he saw other doors in the hallway and started thinking who's in those rooms what kind of weapons they got in there whose footsteps are those coming down to connect me hauling one of the guys a grenade what are we gonna do it's about time we got to the end of the hall he wasn't he didn't forget what I said he never heard it because his primitive animal brain was hyper aroused so what are we gonna do about it you know I mean as a neuroscientist I went back to school later in life I became a physician and I have been fascinated being a brain mechanic that's kind of what I consider myself to be I'm not a behavioral health psychiatrist or anybody that deals with move depression and all this kind of stuff but what I love is the way the brain operates is a machine the most complex machine in the entire universe and what is really amazing to me is we got this part of the brain it's reacting before we think and triggering hormonal releases and consequently behaviors that really take us in situations that we don't necessarily want when we look back well why did I do that during the day the brain is constantly generating ideas constantly generating thoughts it goes back to that you know I like to think about in terms of ontology you know Descartes 1650 said there I think therefore I am how did he define his being I think therefore I am fast forward to the 1950s French existentialist jean-paul Sartre was concerned not that I think therefore I am but I am the person that sees my thoughts thoughts may happen but they're generated spontaneously by the brain they're not necessarily who you are you are the person that sees those thoughts I love that definition because that's the cortex of the brain that I want to amplify I want to magnify when you use that cortex to determine in my life how I live my life what I do I can see thoughts coming into my head you know maybe getting emotional about stuff angry about somebody challenging me or cutting me off on the road or or something that's challenging but it's always good to stop for me I stop to think wow feel my reaction to it is not necessarily what I want to happen here what I want to happen I can control I can do with my cortex I still react is that brain that primitive brain reacts so in my experience both in the working for I've been working for the for the army for about almost seven years now and you know been a brain injury doubt for a few years more than that I see a lot of folks in this status who end up going to doctors and they get headache medications prophylactic and a board of therapies they get sleep meds which don't work they get mood medications they get pain meds okay you know oh let me talk about one more thing I forgot so stress right when you're always walking wrong all these muscles are tightening up you know you're walking around neck the sore back is sore you know this is this is pain being generated by stress you know with headache headache generation particular attention and then migraine headaches neck muscles being tight for that you know from stress pretty much every soldier that I see it's been the war has this going on so is is a solution to give them headache meds to fix the headache or do we get to the cause of the problem let's get to the cause of the problem this isn't rocket science okay a person's stressed it changes the way their body is operating because of these stress hormones being activated so we can do things to reduce the stress you don't need so long well I mean I'm not talking about psychiatric patients need medications but I'm talking about just cases where there's a clear-cut cause of hyper arousal hyper stress okay where this physical symptoms are being generated not by abnormalities in the brain but by a set of circumstances that is arousing the primitive animal brain to create stress hormones and activation of this thing we call stress so what we do when we treat the men and women who have gone to war is try to get to a solution okay so how do we treat headaches send them to a physical therapist they learn a stretching program they get devices heating devices massage devices to loosen up the muscles lower the tension that's triggering the headaches learn sleep hygiene learn relaxation techniques okay we have yoga classes okay we teach meditation meditation has been an amazing tool you know meditation relaxes the brain what happens physical symptoms get better headaches memory sleep mood issues all are improving exercise physical exercises we one I'm probably the biggest advocate of okay we have many many patients who are on profiles meaning they're not allowed to exercise at normal high level of military so we use these programs to really help the soldiers decrease their stress level and go to an organic holistic solution rather than using the pharmaceutical products which of course have significant side effects so I leave you with the message of considering in your own lives how the your primitive animal brain reacts to situations triggering actions and urge you to consider alternatives to the pharmaceutical industry I am about to demonstrate something that I do for relaxation before I was a physician I was a professional guitar player for many years and I'm about to plug in this beautiful Gibson Les Paul over here and do a little I'm gonna do this as a tribute to the men and women that have served in military I've had an amazing opportunity in my life to not only be a professional musician but to go to medical school and become a doctor in my 40s because I live in this amazing country called the United States and play this for all the veterans and current active-duty soldiers and people involved with the military who have allowed me to have the freedom to live this crazy life that I've had so thank you and this is gonna be for you okay let it rip [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 1,854,193

Rating: 4.6358337 out of 5

Keywords: ted talk, Health, Neurology, Behavior, tedx, Disability, TEDxTalks, Mental health, tedx talk, tedx talks, Medicine, Cognitive science, ted x, ted talks, English, Biology, United States, ted

Id: m9Pg4K1ZKws

Length: 28min 2sec (1682 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 20 2015