WIRED TO CONNECT 1 NEUROSCIENCE AND SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE PROFESSOR ROB MACFADDEN, UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO [email protected] @utoronto.ca

WIRED TO CONNECT

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NEUROSCIENCE AND SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE PROFESSOR ROB MACFADDEN, UNIVERSITY OF [email protected]@utoronto.ca

Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social WorkContinuing EducationUniversity of Toronto

October 23, 2013Module 2 Webinar

Social Brain

mailto:[email protected]

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SOCIAL BRAINThere are no “single” brains.

Humans are social to the core; the mind is both embodied and relational.

Human development and maturation is the longest of all the mammals; infant and parent are an inseparable dyad, parent-infant.

We need considerable “home assembly”. Brain maturation occurs into the twenties. Brain development occurs throughout a lifetime.

Social relatedness is structured by neural networks of bonding and attachment, play, predicting other’s behaviours and feeling the feelings of others. At birth, baby set up to encourage social connections through reflexes such as grasping, eye contact and following. It makes them cuddly and attractive to kick start bonding and attachment.

MINDFULNESS MEDITATION & NEUROSCIENCE

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SOCIAL BRAIN

Attachment = SurvivalAbandonment = Death

Infant and children use their parents’ prefrontal lobes as an external prosthetic to help them regulate their emotions (Cozolino, 2006)

Attachment involves the creation of feelings and perceptions connected with self and other and includes evaluation of the worth of self and other and whether other people are predictable, safe and encouraging or unpredictable and dangerous.

Baby is now being seen as an important agent (not just passive) in the attachment resonance. Neurochemical cascade between parents and baby including endorphins, dopamine which rise and fall with touch and separation.


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SOCIAL BRAINInfant looks at parent’s eyes and can see calm or anxiety. Parent’s realities and unconscious experiences are transferred to child. Right brain (parent) to right brain (mother) communication, much unconscious, especially during the earliest years.

Biochemistry of Social Motivation (From Cozolino, 2006, p.121) Androgen and estrogen Sex driveTestosterone Monogamy & paternal behaviourDopamine AttractionNorepinephrine & Serotonin Well-being, reward predictionOxytocin & vasopressin Attachment, nest building, nursing, anxiety

reductionEndorphins Affiliation, maternal behaviour, sexual arousal,

social reward, play behaviour, down-regulates anxiety

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SOCIAL BRAIN

Mirror Neuron System Knowing you, knowing me, knowing you. Considered the root of empathy. Allows us to map the mind of others. Mirror neurons respond to acts with intention or purpose. Includes any act in others you can predict (unconsciously) from experience. Automatic. Hardwired to detect sequences and make maps in our brains of the internal states of other people. Cross modal: operates on all sensory levels. A sound, touch or smell can cue us to the internal state of another. Through embedding the mind of another in our firing patterns, this forms the basis of our mindsight maps. Not only behavioural intentions of others but emotional states of others. We come to resonate with the emotional states of others.

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NEUROSCIENCE & SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE

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A Neural circuit called the insula is the information superhighway between the mirror neurons and the limbic system. The Insula processes pain, taste, sequences speech movements and helps to translate unconscious emotions into conscious feelings. It is is believed that we make maps of intentions through the mirror neurons and then transfer this information downward to subcortical (e.g., limbic and brainstem) regions. These signals from our body, brainstem and limbic areas then travel upwards to our middle prefrontal areas. Pathway: Mirror neurons to subcortical areas to middle prefrontal areas. This is the pathway that connects people to each other. When received by the middle prefrontal cortex, a map is made of our internal world. We feel others’ feelings by actually feeling our own. People who are more aware of their own body feelings have been found to be more empathic. When we can sense our own internal state the pathway for resonating with others is open as well.


For example, the mirror neuron system is thought to be an essential aspect of the neural basis for empathy. By perceiving the expressions of another individual, the brain is able to create within its own body an internal state that is thought to “resonate” with that of the other person. Resonance involves a change in physiologic, affective, and intentional states within the observer that are determined by the perception of the respective states of activation within the person being observed. One-to-one attuned communication may find its sense of coherence within such resonating internal states.

The clinical implications of this work are profound and help therapists to understand not only the inherently social nature of the brain but that their own bodily shifts may serve as the gateway toward empathic insights into the state of another person. Mediated via the insula, perceptions of another’s affective expressions may alter our own somatic and limbic states and then be examined through a prefrontal process of interoception, interpretation, and attribution to another’s states.

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Mirror Neuron System


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Being open to our own bodily states as therapists is a crucial step in establishing the interpersonal attunement and understanding that is at the heart of interpersonal integration.

Such interactive experiences allow the patient to “feel felt” and understood by the therapist, and they also may establish new neural net firing patterns that can lead to neural plastic changes.


Mirror neurons reveal the fundamental integration within the brain of the perceptual and motor systems with limbic and somatic regulatory functions. The mirror neuron system also illuminates the profoundly social nature of our brains. This social basis of neural function may offer new pathways for us to understand how psychotherapy leads to the process of change.

When two minds feel connected, when they become integrated, the state of firing of each individual can be proposed to become more coherent. Literally this may mean that the corresponding activations between the body-proper, limbic areas and even cortical representations of intentional states between two individuals enter a state of “resonance” in which he matches the profiles of the other.

The impairment of such shared states has been proposed to be a characteristic of forms of psychopathology, including schizophrenia. Recent studies in individuals with autism spectrum disorder reveal impairment in the capacity to perceive emotional expressions in others that is associated with markedly diminished mirror neuron activation. With impaired mirror neuron system functioning, the social brain is unable to share in the rapid social interactions that reflect modern life.

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In the process of psychotherapy involving a range of individuals with intact mirror neuron systems, shared states with the therapist may be an essential component of the therapeutic process.

As two individuals share the closely resonant reverberating interactions that their mirror neuron systems make possible, what before may have been unbearable states of affective and bodily activation within the client may now become tolerable with conscious awareness.

Being empathic with patients may be more than just something that helps them “feel better” – it may create a new state of neural activation with a coherence in the moment that improves the capacity for self-regulation. What is at first a form of interpersonal integration in the sharing of affective and cognitive states now evolves into a form of internal integration in the patient. With the entry of previously warded-off states of being in conscious awareness, the patient can now learn to develop enhanced self-regulatory capacities that before were beyond his/her skill set. It may be that as interpersonal attunement initiates a new form of awareness that makes intrapersonal attunement possible, new self-regulatory capacities become available. 11



If the mirror neuron system were to be focused on one’s own states of mind, we can propose that a form of internal attunement would allow for new and more adaptive forms of self-regulation to develop. The practice of focusing attention in the present moment on one’s own intentions and somatic states, such as the breath, have been a mainstay of mindful awareness practices over thousands of years.

A “Mirror Neuron-Mindfulness Hypothesis” can be offered that proposes that the focusing of one’s non-judgmental attention on the internal state of intention, affect, thought and bodily function may be one way in which the brain focuses inward to promote well-being.

As the therapist attempts to achieve such an open, receptive state of awareness toward both internal state changes and for interpersonal signals sent by the patient, the patient’s own mind may be offered the important social experiences to create a similar state. In this way the mirror neuron system may serve a powerful role as the neural basis of mental attunement within and between both patient and therapist.

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Studies of attachment reveal that the parent’s openness to a child’s signals and the coherence of the parent’s own narrative are important predictors of a child’s development of secure attachment. Such factors seem to promote a form of resiliency in the child which helps self-regulation unfold as the child matures.

Psychotherapy may naturally harness these developmental origins of well-being in creating a resonant state in which the therapist is sensitive to the patient’s signals and also has made sense of his or her own life.

Being open to the many layers of our experience, often involving the non-verbal world of sensation and affect in addition to our verbal understanding is an important stance for the therapist to create toward the internal and interpersonal worlds. Within this framework, the state of brain activation in the therapist serves as a vital source of resonance that can profoundly alter the ways in which the patient’s brain is activated in the moment-to-moment experiences within therapy.

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From Brizendine, Louann (2006). The female brain. NY: Three Rivers Press. The following are excerpts and content taken directly and in most cases verbatim from this book. Author is a neuropsychiatrist.

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INTERPERSONAL RESONANCE: AN EXAMPLE

Sarah asks Nick if he is seeing another woman, her visual system begins scanning Nick’s face intently for signs of his emotional response. Does he tighten his face or relax it? Does he clench his mouth or keep it neutral? Whatever the expression on his face, her eyes and facial muscles will automatically mimic it.

The rate and depth of her breathing start to match his. Her posture and muscle tension conform to his. Her body and brain receives his emotional signals. This information is sent through her emotional memory brain circuits to search for a match. This process is called “mirroring” and not all people can do it equally well. Scientists speculate there may be more mirror neurons in the female brain than in the male brain. 118

Sarah’s brain will begin stimulating its own circuits as if Nick’s body sensations and emotions were hers. She can identify and anticipate what he is feeling- often before he is conscious of it himself. Matching breathing, matching posture, she is becoming a human emotion detector. She is feeling his tension in her gut, his jaw clenching in the strain of her neck.

Her brain registers the emotional match: anxiety, fear and controlled panic. As he starts to speak, her brain carefully searches to see if what he says is congruent with his tone of voice. If the tone and meaning do not match, her brain will activate wildly. Her cortex, the place for analytical thinking, would try to make sense of this mismatch.

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She detects a subtle incongruence in his tone of voice- it is a little too over-the-top for his protestations of innocence and devotion. His eyes are darting a bit too much for her to believe what he issaying. The meaning of his words, the tone of his voice and the expressions in his eyes do not match. She knows: he is lying. She is now using her entire emotion network as well as her cognitive and emotional suppression circuits to keep from crying. 119

Sarah’s brain is a high-performance emotion machine- geared to tracking, moment by moment, the nonverbal signals of the innermost feelings of others. Nick is not as adept at reading facial expressions and emotional nuance- especially signs of despair and distress.

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In neuroscience, emotion and feelings are related but different. Antonio Damasio, a distinguished neuroscientist views emotions as playing out in the theatre of the body. Emotions are bodily responses that evolved to ensure our survival and they are at the core of who we are and that they reflect prepackaged decisions of great complexity (LeDoux, 1996).

Damasio views feelings as occurring in the theatre of the mind, after emotional arousal begins. He believes that emotion, feeling and biological regulation are all in the “loop” of high reason. Damasio (2003, p. 86) describes a feeling as “…the perception of a certain state of the body along with the perception of a certain mode of thinking and of thoughts with certain themes.” [DVD]

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EMOTIONS

These feelings can occur unconsciously or consciously, although feelings which are conscious have longer lasting impacts on the conscious mind. Indeed, we may owe our fundamental sense of consciousness to our ability to be aware of our feelings.

Damasio believes we know that we are experiencing an emotion when the sense of a feeling is created in our minds resulting in the sense of a feeling self (Damasio, 1999, p.279). DVD excerpt from the Secret Life of the Brain

Emotions are central to integration (well-being). Emotion is an active process that shifts our state of integration. Emotions link neural pathways into a functioning whole or state of mind. (Siegel). Emotions are also central in decision-making. View this excerpt by Antonio Damasio.

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EMOTIONS

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wup_K2WN0I&feature=related


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wup_K2WN0I&feature=related

Recall again that Mindfulness is believed to help with reappraisal of a stimulus which may short-circuit some of the stress response. All emotions are welcomed and accepted which may help to reduce the negativity pairing.

Mindfulness helps to increase positive mood, lower rumination.

With a more positive mood set, Mindfulness can help with emotional regulation, pairing negative emotions with calm, positivity, leading to some extinction and reconsolidation with a less toxic context to the emotion.

Mindfulness enhances awareness of bodily sensations associated with emotion which is essential in experiencing feelings. Being more aware of emotions and feelings can assist with emotional regulation. Siegel notes that naming a feeling can help to tame the feeling. (Amygdala arousal is frequently reduced when the left hemisphere names the feeling).

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EMOTIONS


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POSITIVE EMOTIONS

From Barbara Fredrickson’s “Broaden and Build Theory of Positive Emotions” Phil.Trans. R.Soc. Lond. B (2004) 359, 1367-1377.

Positive emotions broaden an individual’s thought-action repertoire.Joy creates the urge to play; interest sparks the urge to explore;Contentment induces the wish to savour and integrate; and love sparks a recurrent cycle of each of these urges within safe, close relationships.

Broadened mindsets promote discovery of novel and creative actions, ideas and social bonds which then build the individual’s personal resources, from physical, intellectual to social and psychological.

These resources can function as reserves to increase successful coping and survival.

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POSITIVE EMOTIONS

Positive emotions produce optimal functioning in the present and over the long term. We should cultivate positive emotions in ourselves and others to achieve psychological growth and improved psychological and physical well-being.

Positive emotions:

Broaden people’s attention and thinking;Undo lingering negative emotional arousal;Fuel psychological resilience;Trigger upward spirals towards greater well-being in the future;Seed human flourishing & healthy longevity.

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POSITIVE EMOTIONS

“When positive emotions are in ample supply, people take off. They become generative, creative, resilient, ripe with possibility and beautifully complex.” Fredrickson, p.1375.

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POSITIVE EMOTIONS

“Buddha’s Brain” by Richard Hanson (2009)

Brain has a negativity bias. Normal default is scanning environment for threats. Negative information detected much more quickly than positive information and negative information has a higher priority for memory storage.

Fear causes things to be learned quickly. It takes many, many times to unlearn something that has been learned through fear. (e.g., learned helpless). Good at learning from bad experience, bad at learning from good experiences.

Negative emotional bias creates and intensifies negative emotions like anger, guilt and shame. Anxiety, for instance, makes it more difficult to bring attention inward for meditation practice.

it is important to balance with positive emotions

Note and savour positive experiences. Pay attention and collect themFocus on your emotions and body sensations. Fill your body with these positive emotions and marinate in the sensations

Positive emotions can be used to soothe and balance negative experiences

Associating painful feelings with positive emotions can reduce the impact of negative feelings. The painful feelings expressed within a caring and loving relationship, for example, can reduce the pain and change the intensity of the memory.

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POSITIVE EMOTIONS

In relationships, it takes about 5 positive interactions to overcome the impact of a single negative one.

Given the way the brain focuses us on negatives, it is very difficult to see or appreciate positives. If 10 things happen to you. Eight are positive and two are negative, frequently we focus and ruminate over the two negative events rather than acknowledge or savour the other 8 positive events. Hanson says positive experiences wash through the brain like water through a sieve, while negative ones are always caught.

The brain normally doesn’t save positive experiences, they are nice in the moment. We need to take the extra 10 to 20 seconds to enable the brain to install the activated positive mental state in neural structure.

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POSITIVE EMOTIONS

Note and savour positive experiences. Pay attention and collect themFocus on your emotions and body sensations. Fill your body with these positive emotions and marinate in the sensations

Positive emotions can be used to soothe and balance negative experiences

Associating painful feelings with positive emotions can reduce the impact of negative feelings. The painful feelings expressed within a caring and loving relationship, for example, can reduce the pain and change the intensity of the memory.

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POSITIVE EMOTIONS

Positive experiences don’t just feel good. They bathe our brains in neurochemicals that can cause change in the neural structures. They strengthen positive circuits and make them more likely to fire again.

Rick Hanson (2009) suggests several ways to use and internalize positive experiences:

Turn positive facts into positive experiences. Actively look for good experience, good news. Savour them, stretch them, share them;

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POSITIVE EMOTIONS (Hanson)

1.Activate a positive state first.2.Enrich the experience- make it last 5, 10, 20 seconds. Make it last as long as possible. 3.Make it as intense and as embodied as possible- sensations, emotions.4.Focus on novelty-find things that are fresh and new in the experience.5.Try to see the personal relevance for you- e.g., this achievement will make it more easy to get the job I have always wanted.

Collect positive experiences in a “memory box” and draw from this box to ensure that you can provide yourself with positive experience and feelings on a regular basis.

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NEUROSCIENCE AND SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE

POSITIVE EMOTIONS

Documents

WIRED TO CONNECT 1 NEUROSCIENCE AND SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE PROFESSOR ROB MACFADDEN, UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO [email protected] @utoronto.ca