# Emotion and grey matter is 99% gone...



## amylouise12 (Oct 9, 2014)

Seriously what is causing this to happen to the human brain? I don't understand.. I feel absolutely no emotion or logic reasoning other than I know I'm alive and typing this. My biggest concern is that this is only going to get worse...


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## Guest (Oct 14, 2014)

'Emotional memory in depersonalization disorder: a functional MRI study.

Medford N, Brierley B, Brammer M, Bullmore ET, David AS, Phillips ML
Psychiatry Res. 2006 Dec 1; 148(2-3): 93-102

This study examines emotional memory effects in primary depersonalization disorder (DPD). A core complaint of DPD sufferers is the dulling of emotional responses, and previous work has shown that, in response to aversive stimuli, DPD patients do not show activation of brain regions involved in normal emotional processing. We hypothesized that DPD sufferers would not show the normal emotional enhancement of memory, and that they would not show activation of brain regions concerned with emotional processing during encoding and recognition of emotional verbal material. Using fMRI, 10 DPD patients were compared with an age-matched healthy control group while performing a test of emotional verbal memory, comprising one encoding and two recognition memory tasks. DPD patients showed significantly enhanced recognition for overtly emotive words, but did not show enhancement of memory for neutral words encoded in an emotive context. In addition, patients did not show activation of emotional processing areas during encoding, and exhibited no substantial difference in their neural responses to emotional and neutral material in the encoding and emotional word recognition tasks. This study provides further evidence that patients with DPD do not process emotionally salient material in the same way as healthy controls, in accordance with their subjective descriptions of reduced or absent emotional responses.'


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## amylouise12 (Oct 9, 2014)

Interesting, thank you Selig. In three years of having this disorder I have read numerous cases of people "recovering" or being "cured" is that the same case for those who have had this for years and have little or no emotional responses? I understand that the root of the disorder lies in the brains natural fight/flight response, as if your brain has taken a holiday because it can't deal with the stress of whatever has caused it to dissociate but why is it when you are no longer under stress it continues? I'm really intreuged..


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## Guest (Oct 14, 2014)

amylouise12 said:


> Interesting, thank you Selig. In three years of having this disorder I have read numerous cases of people "recovering" or being "cured" is that the same case for those who have had this for years and have little or no emotional responses? I understand that the root of the disorder lies in the brains natural fight/flight response, as if your brain has taken a holiday because it can't deal with the stress of whatever has caused it to dissociate but why is it when you are no longer under stress it continues? I'm really intreuged..


In my experience, people who go on to experience recovery typically find themselves free of any emotion suppression as well.

Your description is one approach on DPD. There is still a lot to learn about depersonalization, but we can see that it can become pathological following otherwise normal, transient experiences of dissociation. One theory is that the awareness of the sensations causes rumination, fear and obsessive self-checking that becomes a cycle resistance to treatment. Another theory states that childhood trauma is the root of dissociation, and developing it as the result of a trigger such as drug use is merely the manifestation of unprocessed trauma or maladaptive coping mechanisms.

We need more research.


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## amylouise12 (Oct 9, 2014)

I agree there is surely more research needed. What are your opinions on iboga? I've read a few people have had positive experiences, isn't it supposed to reset opiate receiptors in the brain? I'm not sure if it's an internet hoax but just going by what I've read I suppose when you're out of hope anything can seem appealing that has been given good rapport with this disorder


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## Guest (Oct 14, 2014)

amylouise12 said:


> I agree there is surely more research needed. What are your opinions on iboga? I've read a few people have had positive experiences, isn't it supposed to reset opiate receiptors in the brain? I'm not sure if it's an internet hoax but just going by what I've read I suppose when you're out of hope anything can seem appealing that has been given good rapport with this disorder


I'm not familiar with the process, only knew of two members who had terrible experiences with it that left them with worsened symptoms.


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