END NOTES BRAIN LATERALITY 7

10-11-6

“The foundation of emotional processing is the appraisal and arousal system, which can respond with various degrees of intensity.  The brain appears to be able to modify the intensity of response by altering the numbers of neurons that fire and the amounts of neurotransmitters released in response to a stimulus.  Degrees of arousal have a wide range.  If initial appraisal and arousal mechanisms give a minimal activation of the body and brain, then the elaborating appraisal-arousal response will also be minimized….The body’s state of arousal is mediated by the brain through the autonomic nervous system [right brain?] ….the brain in turn monitors the state of the body and incorporates emotional meaning from the somatic markers that serve as representations of the body’s change in physiological state.  (siegelt/dm/246”

“The general pattern of high or low intensity of an individual’s characteristic response may be a product of both constitutional and experiential factors….tendency to respond [or not] intensely to new situations and to withdraw [or approach] when confronted with novelty.  {again, left or right brain dominance factors?]  Geraldine Dawson has found that intensity of emotional response appears to be related to bilateral frontal activation, in contrast to the quality or valence of response, which is asymmetric (involving left activation for approach and right for withdrawal states).  Other individuals may experience milder degrees of intensity of emotion in response to novelty.  (siegel/tdm/246”  [copied to end notes brain laterality 7 from chapter 50 regulation]

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“For an individual with a history of ambivalent attachments, the intrusion of parental emotional states onto those of the child has led to an intense sense of vulnerability and loss of self….  (siegle/tdm/290)”

“As this person’s inner, private states of mind become slowly accessible, the therapist must be ever vigilant to the critical micromoments of interaction where attunement is crucial.  Responding to the patient’s nonverbal signals, including tone of voice, facial expressions, eye gaze, and bodily motion, can reveal the otherwise hidden shifts in states of mind.  Resonating with these expressions of primary emotions requires that the therapist feel the feelings, not merely understand them conceptually.  Resonance involves the alignment of psychobiological states between patient and therapist.  (siegel/tdm/290)”

“One aspect of this attunement is the recognition that everyone seems to go through naturally oscillating cycles of internal versus external focus of connection.  There are times when an individual needs to have self-focus, perhaps reflecting the internal self-regulation of emotional states.  Within moments, however, there may be a noticeable shift to an other-focus, in which external connections are used for dyadic self-regulation.  These natural oscillations suggest the use of modifications of the internal versus external constraints of the individual’s system, in order to regulate the flow of states and self-organization.  These ideas also remind us of the important concept that self-organization is a result of both internal individual processes (siegel/tdm/290) and dyadic processes.  Another implication of such oscillations comes from the findings on hemispheric specialization…in which the left hemisphere mediates approach states and the right hemisphere facilitates states of withdrawal.  The changing focus of processing, mediated via a cycling of left- versus right-hemisphere dominance and of external versus internal focus, may be a part of what we sense when others have a cycling need for external versus internal connection.  (siegel/tdm/291)”

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A therapist and a patient enter into a resonance of states of mind, which allows for the creation of a co-regulating dyadic system.  This system is able to emerge in increasingly complex dyadic states by means of attunement between the two individuals.  The patient’s subtle nonverbal expressions of her state of mind are perceived by the therapist and responded to with a shift in the therapist’s own state, not just with words.  In this way, there is a direct resonance between the primary emotional, psychobiological state of the patient and that of the therapist.  These nonverbal expressions are mediated by the right hemisphere of one person and then perceived by the right hemisphere of the other.  In this way, the essential nonverbal aspect of psychotherapy, and perhaps all emotional relationships, can be conceived as a right-hemisphere-to-right-hemisphere resonance between two individuals.  (siegel/tdm/298)”  copied from chap 51 reg con’t

“The left hemispheres of both members of the dyad are also (siegel/tdm/298) important and active in the verbal exchanges and logical reflections on the patient’s present life, past history, and the therapy experience itself.  The left hemisphere’s interpreter function attempts to “make sense” of experiences and therefore can be seen as a motivational force in the narrative process….coherent autobiographical narratives – a primary focus of therapy of all sorts – probably involve a resonance of left-and right-hemisphere processes in both the teller and the listener.  In this way, the joint construction of narratives reflects the interhemispheric resonance within both members of the therapeutic relationship.  (siegel/tdm/299)”

“The flow of states within the dyadic system is allowed to achieve increasing degrees of complexity as the individuals themselves achieve increasingly coherent states of interhemispheric resonance.   Such a state is achieved via the right-to-right and left-to-left attunements that emerge from the nonverbal and verbal communication between patient and therapist.  The emergent sense of flow, of connection, between two individuals in such a state of resonance is deeply compelling.  (siegel/tdm/299)”

1. (siegel/tdm/299)”   [copied to pre time notes 8]

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++  “When lateral integration connects the complex representational processes of one hemisphere to another, the term “bilateral” or “interhemispheric” integration can be used.  (siegel/tdm/302)” copied from brain notes 8

++  “The associational neurons that link various anatomically and functionally distinct (siegle.tdm.302) regions on either side of the brain may be the means by which the coordination of interhemispheric information processing occurs.  (siegel/tdm/303)”  copied from brain notes 8

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“Lateral integration is revealed within REM sleep and encoding-retrieval processes, in which left and right orbitofrontal cortices are involved in representational integration in dreams and the consolidation of memory.  (siegel/tdm/303)”

“In this form of lateral integration, the isolated functions of each hemisphere can be coordinated into a functionally linked system.  (siegel/tdm/303)”  copied from brain notes 8

++++ AN INTERPERSONAL NEUROBIOLOGY OF STORIES

NARRATIVE AND NEURAL INTEGRATION

“Narrative can also be viewed as requiring both right- and left- hemisphere modes of processing information.  The right brain’s perceptually rich, analogic, context-dependent, autonoetic, mentalizing representations create much of the imagery and many of the themes of the narrative process.  The logical, linear, “making sense” interpre- (siegel/tdm/330) tations of these representations and the communication of narrative details stem from the left hemisphere’s interpretive and linguistic processing of digital representations.  On each side of the brain these processes may reflect a vertical integration of various representational processes.  As the dorsal tract processes (dominant in the right hemisphere) interconnect with those of the ventral tract (dominant in the left hemisphere), dorsal-ventral integration begins to occur.  Within these forms of integration, processes on the right begin to be integrated with those on the left.  We can propose the following bilateral integration process for narratives:  “The left hemisphere’s drive to understand cause-effect relationships is a primary motivation of the narrative process.  Coherent narratives, however, require participation of both the interpreting left hemisphere and the mentalizing right hemisphere.  Coherent narratives are created through inter-hemispheric integration. (siegel/tdm/331)”

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“Integration that recruits multiple layers of circuits may create the most complex states as it links various forms of representation throughout the brain (and, as we’ll see, between brains).  Vertical, dorsal-ventral, lateral, interhemispheric, and spatiotemporal forms of integration are all present within the narrative process.  The “drive to make sense of the mind,” drawing on these multidimensional layers of integration, may in part be seen as a way the brain achieves a more stable (complex) connection among its various representational processes.  The left hemisphere’s effort to find cause-effect relationships draws upon the right hemisphere’s retrieval of autobiographical and mentalizing representations.  Such multilayered integration may exist independently of narration. In other words, the mind may be internally driven to link these layers of representational processes as a function of achieving coherence within the mind itself.  Such internal coherence may be revealed within the orbitofrontal cortex’s capacity for response flexibility and may reflect the integration of a range of prefrontally mediated processes.  As we attempt to communicate a shareable set of representations within autobiographical stories, we must use the linguistic translations and interpretations of the left hemisphere in order to express the narrative of our lives.  Such a communication process lets us see for ourselves, and share with others, the fundamental way in which our minds come to integrate experiences.  (siegel/tdm/331)”

“…Endel Tulving and colleagues have postulated a dual role for the frontal lobes on each side of the brain.  In their “hemispheric encoding-retrieval asymmetry: hypothe- (siegel/tdm/331) sis, the left hemisphere is seen as the primary mediator of autobiographical encoding, whereas the right is responsible for retrieval.  Autonoetic consciousness gives us the ability to perform “mental time travel,” in which we can represent the self in the past, present, and future.  We have also discussed the possibility that the consolidation of memory into permanent storage may require REM sleep and thus depend on the synchronous activation of both hemispheres.  We have proposed that this bilateral activation of the brain may permit a rhythmic process in which right frontal activation retrieves autobiographical representations from more posterior regions of the right brain.  The transfer of this information to the left orbitofrontal regions may then allow encoding to occur.  In essence this may be the encoding of the newly assembled representations created from retrieved memory.  Items in long-term (nonpermanent) storage in this way may be retrieved (right side) and encoded (left side) in a process that integrates information from recent and more distant past experiences as well as from imagination, current perception, and random activations.  (Siegel/tdm/332)”

Same paragraph

“As Winston has suggested, the electrical activity and neuroendocrine milieu of the REM stage of sleep may allow for the consolidation of memory via the induction of the long-term potentiation of synaptic connections.  This bilateral encoding-retrieval process may facilitate the creation of new and strengthened associational links.  This process may also reveal how memory retrieval acts as a “memory modifier” in this setting of bilateral activation, permitting recent recollections of the day’s experiences to be synthesized with prior elements of memory within a constructive and thematic narrative process.  (siegel/tdm/332)”

“In this proposal, interhemispheric integration is essential for memory consolidation.  Dreaming, REM sleep, and cortical consolidation become the integrating processes that mediate autobiographical narrative.  Blockage of these integrating processes may be seen as the core of unresolved trauma and may be revealed as one form of incoherence in autobiographical narratives.  Autonoetic consciousness may thus be impaired as the ability to integrate representations of the self across past, present, and future is disrupted in lack of resolution.  This proposal regarding narrative, consolidation, and bilateral integration is a hypothesis in need of validation….(siegel/tdm/332)”

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this is copied from dissociation notes 6

“The narrative process in this way attempts to make sense of the world and of one’s own mind and its various states.  In some individuals, however, one sees narratives that reflect upon a particular self-state without creating a more global coherence of mind as a whole.  The narrative process is thus a fundamental building block of an integrative mode, but insufficient by itself to create coherence across self-states through time.  [Plus people have a whole lot of denial and justifications and delusions about things] (siegel/tdm/324)”

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