Was watching a video called “
What are you?” about the question of how much of your body is you. Like if you donate an organ is that you inside another person? And you might have heard that your cells are replaced every seven years so you’re not the same person, physically.
Which got me thinking… which cells are never replaced? So I looked it up and found the answer and it was like: cortical neurons (strokes are a thing), spinal cord rarely grows back, some pancreas cells (diabetes does lasting damage), some cells that make T-cells senesce (so elderly die from infections.), and some others.
What I noticed was the exceptions. In cortical neurons there was a notable exception and a possible exception. The notable exception was the hypothalamus and the possible exception was cerebellum. It got me thinking about the roles of those parts in PTSD.
@Weemie get in here, I need your brain power to help me understand what I’m talking about!
It is my understanding that the hypothalamus is part of an axis that includes the amygdala and maybe pituitary or prefrontal cortex? I guess the fear comes via the amygdala and then the hypothalamus triggers the body reactions (sweating, nausea, high blood pressure, etc.)
The cerebellum coordinates sensory input with movement and influences emotions.
So if the hypothalamus and the cerebellum are the only cortical cells that regenerate then might they be key players in recovery?
Like when we condition ourselves to not be scared of our memories we might be messing around with the cerebellum and when we are mindful of our body responses (or even inducing dissociation and numbness) we might be messing around with our hypothalamus?
That’s as much as my brain can ponder because I don’t have enough information but I did think it was interesting that the hypothalamus and cerebellum could regenerate and wondered how that might be related to PTSD recovery.
And on a different note, for the cortical neurons that don’t regenerate… what exactly is going on when we talk about rewiring? And habit forming and habit breaking? When we talk about deep neural grooves shifting by not feeding into them, are the pathways, the connections, literally strengthening and weakening through greater or less use?
That’s the scientific nerdiness I was thinking of just now.