From Schore/ad

RIGHT BRAIN AS NONLINEAR SYSTEM

2-1-07

“…orbital prefrontal area is expanded in the right hemisphere (in contrast to the later maturing nonlimbic dorsolateral prefrontal area, which is larger in the left…) has been suggested to account for the dominance of this hemisphere in the processing of emotional information.  (Schore/ad/108)”

this area of this “early developing right crebral cortex plays an important role in the processing of individual faces early in life, in the infant’s recognition of arousal-inducing maternal facial affective expressions, and in its response to the prosody of motherese.  (Schore/ad/108)”

“…emotional experience of the infant develops through the sounds, images, and pictures that…are disproportionately stored or processed in the right hemisphere during the formative stages of brain ontogeny.  (p. 198) [quoting Semrud-Clikeman and Hynd (1990]  (Schore/ad/108)”
///jogj-intensity affective communications that culminate in the development of the attachment system are essentially right-hemisphere-to-right-hemisphere arousal regulating energy transmissions between the primary caregiver and infant.  (Schore/ad/108)”

“Attachment dynamics continue in ongoing development, and the ventromedial region of the right cortex that neurobiologically mediates these dynamics plays a crucial role in the processing of information emanating from (Schore/ad/108) the human face throughout the life span….(Schore/ad/109)”

During infancy:

“Descending projections from the prefrontal cortex to subcortical structures are know to mature…(Schore/ad/109)”

“…the “primitive” right hemisphere, more than the left, has dense reciprocal interconnections with limbic and subcortical structures, and contains an increased emphasis on paralimbic networks.  These reciprocal right frontal-subcortical connections, especially with bioaminergic and hypothalamic subcortical nuclei, account for the unique contribution of the right hemisphere in regulating homeostasis and modulating physiological state in response to internal and external feedback.  (Schore/ad/109)”

“The representation of visceral and somatic states is under primary control of the right hemisphere, and the somatic marker mechanism, tuned by critical learning interactions in development, is more connected into the right ventromedial area.  (Schore/ad/109)”

“Whittling and Pfluger concluded that the right hemisphere is dominant for “the metacontrol of fundamental physiological and endocrinological functions whose primary control centers are located in subcortical regions of the brain” (1990, p. 260). (Schore/ad/109)”

“ This cortical asymmetry is an extension of an autonomic asymmetry – at all levels of the nervous system the right side of the brain stem provides the primary central regulation of homeostasis and physiological reactivity (Porges et al., 1994).  (Schore/ad/109)”

“[same authors} …right vagus is involved in the regulation of emotion and communication.  Porges also discussed the relationship between “shifts” in emotion regulation and oxygen demands within the ANS….[and] presented a neuroanatomical schema in which he proposed that the input site into this right brain circuit of emotional regulation is the nucleus of the solitary tract.  This site, in turn, is fed by unnamed higher central structures that promote either immediate mobilization of energy resources or calming.  I deduce that the orbitofrontal-insular cortex, the anterior cingulated, and the central amygdala, which all send axons directly into the noradrenergic neurons of the nucleus of the solitary tract and into the hypothalamus, are these structures.  (Schore/ad/109)”

“Indeed, orbitofrontal-vagal interconnections are demonstrated in studies showing that vagal stimulation induces a cortical evoked response only in the orbito-insular cortex, and that orbitofrontal stimulation triggers an almost instantaneous inhibition of gastrointestinal motility, respiratory movements, and somatic locomotor activity, and a dramatic precipitous fall in blood pressure….(Schore/ad/109)”

PARASYMPATHETIC

“…circuit of emotion regulation….the inhibitory lateral tegmental noradrenergic limbic circuit that is hierarchically dominated by the right orbitofrontal cortex…..parasympathetically mediated passive coping mechanisms expressed in immobility and withdrawal allow for conservation-withdrawal, the capacity that improves survival efficiency through inactive disengagement and unresponsiveness to environmental input in order “to conserve resources.”  (Schore/ad/109)….this “emotion-focused coping” [parasympathetic] is directed toward the reduction of the emotional impact of stress through psychological processes [in constrast to below]….. (Schore/ad/110)”

Is he talking about dissociation? And/or shame?

SYMPATHETIC

“As opposed to sympathetically drive “fight-flight” active coping strategies….”problem-focused coping,” which entails (Schore/ad/109) direct action on the self or on the environment to remove the source of stress…  (Schore/ad/110)”

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“With regard to the other ventral tegmental dopaminergic limbic circuit… emotionally stressful experiences result in greater dopaminergic activation of the right over the left prefrontal cortex…(lists refs).  ….the right cortex is at the top of a hierarchy for the processing of prolonged emotionally stressful inputs, and…endogenous dopaminergic modulation facilitates adaptive responses.  [what does he mean by dopaminergic modulation?  Increase or decrease?] Furthermore, the researchers posited that under intense inputs, a left-to-right shift occurs in intrinsic neural activity. [What other than intrinsic could neural activity be?] (Schore/ad/110)”

“These ideas correspond with the assertion that this nondominant (!) hemisphere plays a central role in the control of vital functions supporting survival and enabling the organism to cope with stressors (Wittling & Schweiger, 1993).  In line with the principle that the right cortex operates in conjunction with a frontal system that is involved in modulating the emotional valence of experience (Heller, 1993), I suggest that upon its maturation in the middle of the second year, the orbitofrontal area of the right hemisphere acts as an “executive control system” for the entire right brain.  (Schore/ad/110)”

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ONGOING DEBATE – CONTROVERSY

CONCERNING REGULATION OF EMOTIONS AND HEMISPHERIC ASYMMMETRY – LATERALIZATION

“There is now general agreement that right cortical posterior association regions are centrally involved in the perception of all emotional information.  (Schore/ad/110)”

[I think these associational regions are damaged in form and function when dissociation has to be used during infant brain formation stages, therefore the perception of “all emotional information” is thrown off.]

“However, with regard to the production and experience and thereby the regulation of emotion, there is a controversy as to whether the right hemisphere regulates all emotions or the right is specialized for negative and the left for positive emotions.  (Schore/ad/110)”

“In General, studies examining hemispheric lateralization for emotional nonverbal stimuli (e.g., faces) have provided support for the right hemispheric model of emotional lateralization (Ali & Cimino, 1997), a finding that fits with the conception that the right hemisphere contains a “nonverbal affect lexicon,” a vocabulary for nonverbal affective signals such as facial expressions, gestures, and prosody (Bowers et al., 1993).  (Schore/ad/110)”

“…in the high-arousal elated state, the infant turns the head to the left, indicating right hemispheric activation….  (Schore/ad/110)”

“…infants with right posterior brain damage show a persistent deficit in the expression of positive affect….(Schore/ad/110)”

schore goes on to talk about primitive emotions here…It gets to be a dilemma for me to know where to put things.  I am going to put the info in the folder on mental representations, even though earlier related information is in files on emotions – and are connected to information on ANS – I will put this information here, is also copied into mental representation file and into a rt brain file

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copied from the schore ad section on energy

PRIMITIVE OR PRIMARY EMOTIONS

Larsen & Trauner, 1995:

“…concluded that the development of infant emotions represent “primitives” of affective communication.  (Schore/ad/111)”

“…emotions have, in addition to a valence (hedonic) dimension, an intensity or arousal (energetic) dimension.  Many of the “primary” emotions are

ergotropic-dominant, energy-expending, high-arousal

or

trophotropic-dominant, energy-conserving, low-arousal affects

and these “primitive” affects appear early in development [it would be nice and helpful if he said here HOW early], arise automatically, are expressed in facial movements, and are coreltated with differentiable ANS activity.  Due to the lateralization of catecholaminergic systems in the right hemisphere, it is dominant in the regulation of arousal and is more closely associated with regulation of heart rate than the left.  This hemisphere is specialized for processing the autonomic correlates of emotional arousal, and activation of the right orbitofrontal are occurs during classical conditioning of an emotional response, the learning of the relationship between events that allows the organism to represent its environment (Hugdahl et al., 1995).  The structural and functional qualities of the right cortex, which has a higher metabolic rate than the left, thus account for its essential role in highly arousing emotional processes.  (Schore/ad/111)”

I need to also copy this last part into a file so that it can go with the specific information on the hemispheres

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copied from schore/ad brain damage:

This hemisphere is dominant for the regulation of the secretion of cortisol (Wittling & Pluger, 1990) and shows heightened activity in overwhelming and uncontrollable panic states marked by terror and intense somatic symptoms (Heller, Etienne, & Papanicolaou, 1995).  (Schore/ad/119)”

“The right hemisphere, which is preferentially activated in stress, is specialized to process intensely negative states (Otto, Yeo, & Dougher, 1987).  PET (Positron Emission Tomography) imaging studies that measure energy metabolism are now revealing the preeminent role of right-hemispheric paralimbic activity as traumatic emotional memories are activated (Rauch et al, 1996), and are documenting the changes in orbitofrontal metabolic activity during the evocation of a phobic state (Frederikson, Wik, Annas, Ericson, & Stone-Elander, 195).  (Schore/ad/125)”

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