Bill B

I want to reintroduce the neuroplasticity phenomenon. This neuro capacity is really intriguing. For instance, one of the students that Gay and I worked with was a woman who is legally blind. She was studying neuroplasticity in her doctoral program because it was clear that the part of her brain that is devoted to visual processing had been set aside. For her, this sector of the brain is now providing functions related to memory for the spoken word. We know that people can shift many cortical functions over time.

However, Mitch, what you’re bringing up is something quite different. If a person has grown up in a state of threat, then are portions of the brain used for other functions suddenly set aside? And what you do if portions of your brain are now more occupied with determining a threat? When you say that you’re consumed in discovering threat, then it could literally be the case that more portions of your brain are now allocated to the threat assessments. So, you become terrific at identifying all sorts of threats. And you become trigger happy regarding threat appraisal. And as Bill G. was suggesting, some of those threat assessments are appropriate. Maybe you’re someone who can sense a threat better than anyone else can. And so, you’re saving lives, but it’s also a case that you’re loaded with threat. Your brain is now saturated with the capacities and mechanisms involved with threat. So, it’s interesting to think about neuroplasticity and its relationship to threat as we’re talking about it.

Gay

I think it’s also important to mention that when we’re in threat, the HPA axis is activated. As a result, the executive functioning is not very acute in some cases. And so, effective decision-making becomes nil at best for a lot of those folks who continually live in a threat state. So, whether neuroplasticity plays a part in terms of more allocation, I think there is the matter of intensity. I don’t know if I would say more allocation, but certainly more intensity of the experience. We relive it and relive it and relive it. As a result, our brain will relive the threat—whether it’s actually happening or not.

Bill B

It is also important to consider that links of many parts of the brain to the prefrontal suddenly become weaker. I end up believing that I don’t need that prefrontal anymore.

Gay

Because I’ve got this limbic response.