A Unified Theory for Physical Therapy and the Treatment of Pain

[oconor]

The hippocampus is a brain structure that is thought to be an association making machine.

What seems to be clear is that the hippocampus is designed to make connections to many brain areas creating associations.

This mechanism allows a memory to be created with associations of for example the sight, smell, sound, feel, emotion, temperature, etc. of a single object. All of which are mapped and percieved in different parts of the brain.

So, thinking back to the idea of pain as a threat. Your brain has a mechanism in place that is designed to make lots of associations so that it can better recognize the next time it encounters a threat. It is so good in fact that it is thought that phobias might be a result. Some fears are evidently innate. Humans for example might have a natural fear of snakes, or at least objects that slither on the ground. If a snake is witnessed in a forest on a rainy day. The next time you are in a forest on a rainy day you might feel a bit uneasy and not realize why. These associations can continue to build onto one another until fear becomes associated with illogical objects such as open spaces. Pain is the same way. It can become associated with more and more movements and scenarios.

I've been making my way through this thread very slowly, but I wanted to comment on this section because it corresponds with what I've learned from reading one of the works of Temple Grandin.

She's a doctor of animal science and explains in one of her books how one of the challenges of training animals is to reproduce the desired behaviors outside of the circumstances they were learned in. For example, when a dog goes to a obedience class it may perform all the requests asked of it, but once it is home, it will have no clue what you want.

It would seem to me that the more novel or stimulating the setting, the more precedence it may have in recalling the association between the stimulus (Sit!) and the reaction (the dog sits) and the outcome (here's a tasty doggie treat, bud).

My friend has a dog that's been conditioned to react aggressively to people wearing hats. It'll be friendly toward you, but as soon as you put a hat on you are an imminent threat. Funny, how specific it can be and how it can override all contraindications that this particular person is not a threat, as there is no other past or present evidence to support that.

[smith]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0219101633.htm

This was interesting. I don't know if we kicked it around yet.

[smith]

Review time here. https://www.sciencedaily.com/release...0311150127.htm

focused breathing activates frontal sites too, analogous to the above.