# What is physically happening to the body during dp?



## 2deepathinker (Aug 17, 2009)

Does anyone know what an MRI looks like of someone who is depersonalized versus someone who isn't depersonalized? I don't know, but am wondering if anyone knows the answer to this? I am also wondering if anyone knows what is physiologically/physically happening in the body and brain when people depersonalize? I am curious about this, and want to find out.


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## Katezorz (Jan 10, 2010)

Apparently there is more activity on the left side of the brain. That's all I know, really.


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## flipwilson (Aug 19, 2006)

Apparently a very very tiny man wearing nothing but boxer briefs crawls into your brain and starts to urinate. This induces the dissociation which in turn induces the anxiety and panic which then creates more dissociation. He giggles a little bit and then runs around just punching the fuck out of your limbic system and the back of your eye balls. When hes done and really tired from doing that he takes off his briefs and takes a raging glorious dump. He then spreads his handy work all over your brain parts cementing your horrid condition even further so that one day you wake up and have no idea who the fuck you are and where the hell you were going....then again nothing has been totally proven yet....

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_5?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=depersonalization+disorder&sprefix=deper

check these out for what im sure is a more substantial answer


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## Surfingisfun001 (Sep 25, 2007)

I had an MRI done, the doctor said it looked perfectly normal. I also had a SPECT scan done which showed some brain damage (I've been hit in the head a lot), severe anxiety, and depression.


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## Guest (Apr 21, 2010)

Google PET scans of people with Depersonalization. Those show marked over and under activity in certain areas of the brain.


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## insaticiable (Feb 23, 2010)

Im down to get a SPECT or PET scan. I wanna see what's wrong and if anything shows up. Im curious...


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## EverDream (Dec 15, 2006)

insaticiable said:


> Im down to get a SPECT or PET scan. I wanna see what's wrong and if anything shows up. Im curious...


I would really like to do this tests, but it cost lots of money I think. Not long ago there was a research done in the university with PET(or maybe it was fMRI?) that was for free and you could also get disc with the results. I thought I could use it to see my damaged brain, but apperntaly left handed people are not good enough.









flipwilson, I like you explaintion.


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## Claymore (Jun 13, 2009)

flipwilson said:


> Apparently a very very tiny man wearing nothing but boxer briefs crawls into your brain and starts to urinate. This induces the dissociation which in turn induces the anxiety and panic which then creates more dissociation. He giggles a little bit and then runs around just punching the fuck out of your limbic system and the back of your eye balls. When hes done and really tired from doing that he takes off his briefs and takes a raging glorious dump. He then spreads his handy work all over your brain parts cementing your horrid condition even further so that one day you wake up and have no idea who the fuck you are and where the hell you were going....then again nothing has been totally proven yet....
> 
> http://www.amazon.co...r&sprefix=deper
> 
> check these out for what im sure is a more substantial answer


You forgot to mention that the tooth fairy spiked his kool-aid with LSD.


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## match_stick_1 (Jun 9, 2010)

surfingisfun001 said:


> I had an MRI done, the doctor said it looked perfectly normal. I also had a SPECT scan done which showed some brain damage (I've been hit in the head a lot), severe anxiety, and depression.


Hey yeah i did too. Ive ben hit in the head more times than id care to remember. I actually ran into a speeding car with my head. I wonder if that contributed...


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## nic.m (Aug 8, 2010)

I can't speak for anyone else, but I have problems with my parietal-temporal cortex and right posterior parietal cortex which are the parts of the brain generally associated with "knowing" things e.g. who I am, where I am, where my body is, where I am going - both physically and emotionally. These parts of the brain receive input mainly from the vestibular system which allows you to feel balanced, which in turn receives input from the eyes, the brain, muscles and nerves throughout the body, and receptors in the inner ear.

If any of these parts are not working properly, or the neurons aren't firing correctly or rapidly enough, you're going to have trouble figuring out who and where you are in space and in your body.

Has anyone read Norman Doidge's book The Brain That Changes Itself? I found the case study of the woman in the first chapter fascinating - her vestibular system pretty much didn't work at all so she relied purely on sight to stop herself from falling over. If the lights were switched off she would instantly fall to the ground because she had no way of figuring out up from down and therefore couldn't keep her body upright. I figure there's hope for us all if she managed to recover!


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## BusyBee (Aug 7, 2010)

Interesting..

Ive got an open appointment in december to go and have these further brain scans if no improvement..
Im hoping i make a miraculous recovery as the MRI scared me enough! Btw it showed up complatly normal.


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## Visual (Oct 13, 2010)

2deepathinker said:


> Does anyone know what an MRI looks like of someone who is depersonalized versus someone who isn't depersonalized? I don't know, but am wondering if anyone knows the answer to this? I am also wondering if anyone knows what is physiologically/physically happening in the body and brain when people depersonalize? I am curious about this, and want to find out.


MRIs and CAT scans reveal structural damage or physiological abnormalities/variations.

PET/SPECT scans show metabolic activity. They use radioactive tracers that will concentrate is areas of high activity and rarify is areas of low activity - thus they are very coarse. Most times altered mental states (anxiety, depression, DP, etc&#8230 don't show. More is found at the research level but at the practice level it is unlikely to be revealing.

As for what is happening in the brain, ultimately it is usually as mysterious as the question of what is life and consciousness. When asking a neurologist about how medications were affecting me (physiological verses emotional) he stated that actually no one really understands how medications are actually working anyway.


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## geronimo88 (May 16, 2011)

It's maddening, my MRI came back completely normal. I was hoping it would show that I had a tumor or something...anything that a surgeon could cut out of my brain so I can feel normal again.


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## Guest (Aug 17, 2011)

2deepathinker said:


> Does anyone know what an MRI looks like of someone who is depersonalized versus someone who isn't depersonalized? I don't know, but am wondering if anyone knows the answer to this? I am also wondering if anyone knows what is physiologically/physically happening in the body and brain when people depersonalize? I am curious about this, and want to find out.


no MRI can scan your soul.


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## RamonX (Feb 10, 2011)

Lowrey said:


> no MRI can scan your soul.


A functional MRI can detect your emotions though.


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## Guest (Aug 19, 2011)

RamonX said:


> A functional MRI can detect your emotions though.


no way.


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## RamonX (Feb 10, 2011)

Lowrey said:


> no way.


I guess you don't believe in gnomes either


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## Totally DP'D (Jun 8, 2011)

There are such things as 'Neural Correlates of Consciousness' (NCCs) that are detected by fMRI and other scanning methods. There's nothing particularly outrageous about suggesting that emotional states are amenable to physical measurement. The mind is after all, a brain function.


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## forestx5 (Aug 29, 2008)

I'll buy that.


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## brianjones (Sep 14, 2011)

How do you guys read this shit?

Half the people freak out that the world is a dream, and that they're so lonely and stuck in their own minds. And we're here trying to tell them that its not a dream, the outside world is real. BUT.

Doesn't figuring out that DP is a result of bad brain chemistry emphasize this point even more? That the normal world is still in your head, that its all in your fucking head, and your head is your own little prison. Omg. Geezus. And feeling Dp'd and feeling normal is all the same shit--its a fucking illusion of chemistry that can be manipulated, altered, and changed. I don't. I'm kinda running under the assumption that everyone here is DP'd and therefore super sensitive to most aspects of existence, and that this type of stuff should freak them out even more.


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## toshibatelly (Sep 13, 2011)

I read that there is a fault with the synapses in the brain, so there is an unduly long disconnect between reality happening and your experience of it, this produces the feelings of distance from reality. As for how this links in with feeling disconnected from your emotions and memories, who knows?


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## eiji850 (Jun 29, 2010)

we are all fucked lol damn come on people give me some good news someone lol...


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## Wallace (Jun 15, 2013)




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## Wallace (Jun 15, 2013)




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## Nathanael.A. (Apr 16, 2013)

On the brain side of things, who knows. On the body side of things, apparently theres some kind of vegetative aunonomic system shut down going on, which ive noticed quite a bit myself. DP numbs not just the brain, but the body also, so it kind of makes sense. somewhere up in ur right prefrontal cortex theres this part called the right dorsolateral region which is some how mediates the experience of emotion. When dp kicks in, somehow this goes into overdrive and its flames out for the amygdala and the limbic system altogether, or thats the idea anyway.


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## Midnight (Jul 16, 2011)

This is relevant to my interests and a pretty interesting topic of discussion. I'm finding that DP/DR has fucked with me physically as well. Everything is suppressed, including my appetite and ability to experience positive emotions. Also I cant feel drunk and also cant feel drugs the same way anymore.


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## Nathanael.A. (Apr 16, 2013)

Lol. yeah my sense of taste has gone out of the window, ppl are always like @man u wana go to kfc?' and I feel indifferent to it, somehow theres no enjoyment to eating the food, nor detection of specific culinary flavors while eating it, its just bland


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## AndyD (Nov 24, 2011)

MRI's can only show structural damage or tell you if you have a tumor. They can not tell you if the neurons are working and/or how parts of the brain are working and communicating. FMRI's can show "activity in the brain" by lighting up certain areas, but this is very limited. My understanding is that people with DP have a loss of neuronal activity in many parts of the brain and some areas that are overactive. The overactive areas are usually involved with thinking and the underactive areas are usually parts that are involved with emotion and the limbic system. My guess is people with DP have dead limbic and emotional systems and therefore certain parts involved in "thinking" (left side) is overactive in an effort to compensate for the limbic and emotional deadening. 
The question remains whether or not the neurons are actually damaged or are just not working properly. I understand people may not want to hear this, but my personal opinion is that those areas with little to no activity are damaged neurons. Not for everyone, but for a lot of us. What i am saying is DP is more like a neurological disease and their is neruonal damage to parts of the brain, Could be a different reason they have been damaged for each of us. One person's could be related to a virus/infection and someone elses could be from an autoimmune disease, someone else from glutamatic acid exitotoxicity, ect, That is why i have suggested people continue to be thorough in their search for another underlying medical condition that could possibly be causing their DP.

The reason I don't believe people with DP are getting proper care is because the illness is being wrongly categorized as a "pyschitatric condition" and even worse "a pyschiatric condition with a pyschological basis", when in fact it is more closely in line with a neurological disease, like MS or Epilepsy.


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## Guest (Sep 16, 2014)

^ That's all well and good&#8230; but we all have to understand many many people DO recover from the dissociative disorders to the point where it doesn't really impact their lives anymore. So no matter what's going on in the brain and all the theories behind it&#8230; For most, it IS reversible given the right treatment.

I'm sure they can physically 'measure' the reversal process as well.. maybe they one day they will.... A 'study' of a patient during recovery&#8230; over time.


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## AndyD (Nov 24, 2011)

Good point. I can't argue that.... I agree recovery is possible for anyone. Even nerves have been shown to regenerate. Like you said the important thing is finding what works to manage it even if you can not get to the source of it. Time can also heal.


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## Guest (Sep 16, 2014)

Underactive amygdala, overactive medial prefrontal cortex- both causing hypoemotionality. Insula is shown to be underactive as well.


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## Nathanael.A. (Apr 16, 2013)

Interesting question (Trigger warning)....

Well, I'm not too sure tbh, in regards to the actual 'working of things', for myself that was kind of hard to fathom seein as its kind-of a myystery how the brain functions in the first-place, let alone when things go side-ways.

However, in recent times, ive come across more than one paper regarding actual physical changes which may be happening to the brain in affective disorders, similar to the one in question, which was another thought of mine which cropped up here and there in the general process of things, anyway apparently in most occurences of stress during normality physical brain changes happen which isn't hard to imagine seein as the brain is pretty plastic (physically changes in structure gradually over the course of time as part of its normal workings), but usually the brain returns to normal. However, in chronic conditions such as these, affective disorders and such, these actual physical changes in brain structure can be long-lasting, persistent and in some cases even permanent, so yeah.

However, medicinal intervention has been shown to be capable of inhibiting and even able to fully prevent this process, something known as Mifepristone has been shown to be helpful in cases of similar conditions.


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## mindfulnessbl (Nov 4, 2013)

Andy D The reason I don't believe people with DP are getting proper care is because the illness is being wrongly categorized as a "pyschitatric condition" and even worse "a pyschiatric condition with a pyschological basis", when in fact it is more closely in line with a neurological disease, like MS or Epilepsy.

If this is the case, were doom to a life of misery and worse, big pharma meds.


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