How Neurofeedback Is Revolutionizing Stress Management
We may be able to train ourselves to control brain activity
Fear, stress, and anxiety are some of the biggest dangers to our mental health. But like many of our unpleasant emotions, they have important functional origins; without them, we lack the motivation to flee from danger or avoid harmful behaviors.
The amygdala is a brain structure involved in emotional experiences, such as fear and anxiety. Stressful experiences can adjust its sensitivity. For soldiers who enter military service, for example, symptoms of stress correlate with their amygdala reactivity. After their military service, their amygdala is more responsive to medical images than it was before their service started.
Some evidence suggests that our brain’s prefrontal cortex, an area frequently linked to behavioral control and decision-making, regulates the level of activity in our amygdala when we are faced with unpleasant stressors. Patients with lesions in specific parts of their prefrontal cortex show stronger amygdala responses when looking at distressing images. In a sense, their amygdalae are out of control. Other abnormalities in this control link between the prefrontal cortex and amygdala are characteristic of patients who suffer from depression.
