PTSD and full repair of the limbic system

I've been reading an article on neurogenesis (brain repair) and it does mention both physical and mentally-stimulating activities aids in brain repair. Other research also shows that academics usually recover better from brain damage than those that do less mentally stimulating activities.

It does feel like I am functioning better by doing various activities that stimulate different parts of my brain and in different ways. For example, I am doing activities that work on different forms of intelligence such as kinesthetics (physical activities like boxing/MMA), auditorial (music/piano), visual-spatial (visual arts), linguistics (learning language such as Spanish/French/Esperanto) and logical (maths and science).

I guess the brain is pretty much like any other body part. If you don't use it, you lose it. Physical activities aid in muscle growth including a stronger heart, increased numbers of capillary for better blood flow and an improved cardiovascular system, and doing different exercises also help the body in different ways. I would think a variety of mental exercises would benefit the brain in the same way as a variety of exercises would benefit the body.

---

@supmethods wrote:

My questions are as follows:

* What activities help repair the limbic system? I know doing physical activities and meditation does help repair the hippocampus. Is there anything else you would suggest?

* Can the limbic brain fully repair itself without the use of medication? That is, can it return to it's full size without the aid of medication.

---

Hi @supmethods

These are great questions. Tricky though! I can't really think of many members on here that specifically talk about doing activities to repair the brain.

There are, however, quite a few members who do various activities, and might be able to talk about the benefits. Would you find this helpful? @MoonGal started this thread on exercise and goal setting, and @Appleblossom plays the piano, I think. I'm not sure if its a long shot, but they might be able to talk about how these activities improve their overall well-being and possibly brain functioning. Though I'm not sure how relevant this is to PTSD.

About a year ago the ABC ran a series, 'Redesign my Brain'. It showed how different activities can work the brain and strengthen different parts. I'm not sure that it's still available on ABC iView, but you might be able to find it somewhere on the internet. I also saw this article in The Conversation about PTSD and exercise.

Hope this helps a bit.

CherryBomb

Hello @supmethods, and thanks for the tag @CherryBomb.

There MUST be specific things that can be done for the Limbic system.

We must be on a synchronicity train @supmethods, I am currently reading a book about PTSD and recovery by Bessel van der Kolk titled "The Body Keeps The Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma".

I have only read the first few chapters, and had to return it to the library, but have ordered my own copy from Booktopia (an Aussie online bookseller). I think the book would be an excellent source to answer your specific questions if you haven't read it already.

Your specific questions in regards how to heal the hippocampus might be in the book, I know from the bit I read the medial frontal cortex and hippocampus, limbic system amygdala etc were all referred to as "see later chapter" in regards work that we can do to improve function.

There are two things I gained insight into for the first time.

- The mental health care system wants us to LOOK recovered but to date has not really provided a path to recovery that is effective. In fact for me no pathway to recovery from PTSD has been presented at all.[1]

- I understood for the first time exactly how PTSD 'works' int he body and the revelation and my realisation that what happens whenever I am triggered could be switched off again if I caught the moment of triggering, the reptile brain (amygdala, insula) overides the neo-cortex. If I could get a snap-message to the reptile (first evolutionary) brain from the neocortex I could interrupt the cascade and stop it in its tracks. So I came up with a very quick "brain message", when I felt myself falling into a trigger/cascade. "That was then. This is Now" - OMG, you wouldn't believe how much that has helped in the past two weeks as I am in a situation where I am being triggered repeatedly. I stepped out of the cascade and onto solid ground JUST be doing that, my anxiety levels have fallen because of the interruption of the cascade process.

The PTSD cascade as I understand it is some catalyst (a thought, smell, interaction with a person) triggers the reptilian brain (Amygdala/Insula), the limbic brain responds (emotion/fear/anger) and at the same time the neo-brain shuts down, removing our immediate ability to have any effective thought process that can ameliorate against the deeper/older physiological response. Having a quick strong THOUGHT to overcome the triggered cascade has helped.

I wonder therefore if tracking back down the brain responses and finding things to overcome the trigger, and having a DIFFERENT reaction over and over can help heal the shrunken/damaged hippocampus? Practicing and visualisation of what good emotional responses could (should?) be may strengthen it too. We are wired, and even visualisation fires off these pathways... If we could imagine the 'best self' response to any given emotional situation and practice that (both in real life and by regularly visualising it) it would have to strengthen all the nueral pathways involved.

To illustrate some of the ways the Brain can be changed I am going to jump to Neuroplasticity from a different angle.

I have an interest in neuroplasticity in regards managing or overcoming chronic pain too, which again looks at 'healing' parts of the brain but in this case damaged by physical trauma such as stroke or disease processes, like spinal cord damage (which is what I have) etc.

The book by Norman Doige MD, titled “The Brain's Way of Healing: Remarkable Recoveries and Discoveries from the Frontiers of Neuroplasticity” lead me to the work of Marla D Golden, DO and Michael H. Moskowitz, MD - Neuroplastix. I am sharing this because although it is not specifically regarding PTSD - it shows the kinds of approaches used in nueroplastic responses to changing the brain consciously.

I was about to travel overseas at the time I dug deep into this stuff, so really worked a number of the suggested things to try to overcome crippling back pain (all pain is in the brain) - and got a good understanding by printing out some of the slides from the Nerroplastix website about which parts of the brain were over active, or not working properly.

Also I listened everyday to the 'music' [2] sample link (which I managed to find as sound files for free download at other locations on the www -) called Default Mode Network - DMN which is supposed to help reset the Default Mode Network.

I suspect more what happened for me was all this concentration on the brain and doing things that affect specific areas that were not acting as they 'should' -did help to reset the brain. I have had a lasting effect in that I do not PLUG into my pain as much but the pain is still there as strong as ever. So, I had limited success, but was self-directed, who knows what might have happened if I had someone holding my hand and coaching me through it. (I was very motivated too.)

Illustration 1: The areas of the brain involved in Pain.

Illustration II. Some suggested ways to strengthen function of these parts.

Images (c) Neuroplastix.

Link to The Body Keeps the Score book on Booktopia: here

Link to Brain's Way of Healing book at Booktopia: here

____________________________________________

Footnotes:

[1]- I have not really EVER had the PTSD treated in any structured way, and on one hand I feel pretty pissed off about that - I have been presenting as a survivor of CSA since my 20's in dire need of help and PTSD was not ever really mentioned despite it being evident that my myriad mental health issues include complex PTSD.

Like anything in life it is up to us, if we can to do what we can for ourselves, but I do wonder how effective the mental health system is if NO ONE in all these years of treatment hasn't recommended me to someone who specialises in recovery from PTSD. Most treatments to date however seem to be the "exposure and biofeedback" type stuff which lessens the EXTERNAL acting out of fear/rage - it modulates and makes us more 'normal' on the surface while all the cascade of neuro and physiological changes still occur on the inside we just don;t act out, freeze up etc. That fits us up for 'purpose' to be good little worker bees, but hardly makes for a lovely life, being FREE of the terror, the adrenaline, the fear, the nightmares, the reactionary and self-protective impulses etc would be a huge relief and a goal that I now know it is possible because of the book.

[2] These soothing sound files are music to your brain. For example: Two Tibetan Singing Bowls are played with one another to help re-establish the slow rhythm of the brain's resting state networks. The sounds are relaxing, calming and pleasurable. Between each bowl sound a second rhythm is generated to help calm the excessive firing of nerve cells and restore normal communication in brain circuits. Using an MP3 player with ear bus means the shift from right ear to left ear can be heard and results int he brain 'resetting'.

What's the NBR 1 treatment?

I am amazed at your thoroughness of approach @supmethods.

I havent read the books mentioned by @MoonGal but have been interested in them for a while and may get them yet. I keep up to date by looking at online utube neuroscience etc. I like Robert Sapolsky's lectured and have branched out from there. I dont have room in my house for more book cases and not yet comfortable with ebooks.

Great you play piano @supmethods what do you like to play? ... it is great for laying down neural networks etc ... left-right brain integration and increasing academic performance etc ... it can both stimulate and calm the nervous system.

I suspect I have cPTSD from long term trauma so it wont be easily be fixed but I liked @utopia's description of what happens when traumatic triggers become less distressing for us.

I have been somewhat aware of the feeling of different parts of my brain being in overwork mode or overheated. I think a range of activities as you described in your post is a great way to reach optimum health.

It is just such a damn cutting edge complex field.

One interesting thing I learned recently is that neuronal stems can be short or very elongated (eg 1000%) and lead to a lot of physical looping of actual neurones and therefore connections in the brain.

One issue with doing many things simultaneously is that it would be difficult to know what effected what.

You probably are already aware of the difference between complicated systems and complex systems. I have some interest though .. its a great topic.

Wow! That's a lot of detailed information. I'll have to really dig deep if I was to fully understand it. @MoonGal

I have never been able to stop the PTSD cascade through any thoughts, once the triggers has been set off my body/mind goes into that fight-fright-flight mode. My mind just blanks out and I find it extremely difficult to perform tasks. Lack of concentration, ridgeness in movement and slow in completing tasks are a few of the challenges I find once I'm in this mode.

I have tried using different thoughts to snap out of this mode but struggled to alleviate the anxiety. I have tried telling myself it's all in the mind, singing in my head, use mindfulness techniques by simply brushing any thoughts aside, divert my thoughts to another task such as cooking some meal or thoughts of a good friend of mine but still struggled to snap out of this mode.

Being removed from the toxic environment has helped (e.g. workplace harrassment and consistently being harassed) and avoiding situations that'll just upset me (e.g. people that'll only put me down such as certain family members and frienemies). Although a lot isn't perfect right now (a lot of damage has been done to me and I don't just mean mentally but other aspects of my life), I do have time to start healing now.

I still believe that I'll be able to fully recover to how I was before I developed this mental illness. I remember at the most severe leveI I was plagued with anxiety and negative thoughts the moment I woke up, during when I eat, watching movies and even in my sleep. Basically doing any tasks or performing any activities, negatives thoughts lingered and everything looked pretty fuzzy most of the time.

But now a lot of my symptoms has subsided and I've improved by hundreds of folds. Some of things that once offsets this response no longer do or when it does, it's a lot milder. I can now focus much better without being detracted by negative thoughts and put full attention on the task at hand.

Definitely, going to look in reading more about neuroplasticity and neurogenesis. All the best on your road to recovery.

I especially like the "Get out of my Amygdala" line my fight/flight in @MoonGal's pictures.

Now that is a concept I can get behind .. when feeling overwhemed.

Yeah, it's hard to say what effected what, it's a very complex field indeed. @Appleblossom

Maybe such activities not only repair the brain cells but it has helped me by detracting my mind from negative thoughts. Maybe it's the positive physiological change. as a result of doing rewarding and fulfilling activities, that's also aiding in my recovery.

Overall, I feel better though in terms of mental health and personal fulfilment. So I'll just keep doing all the small things that'll makes me feel better and I know isn't detrimental to my health.

The article also mentioned treatment with medications, has that helped others with PTSD?