“The
Neuroscience of True Grit”
Scientific American
March 2011
Gary Stix
Chelsea Heimiller
Biology 109
October 2012
Period 7
The human brain is surprisingly resilient, even in the most difficult times. When one
experience something traumatic, such as a death in the family, or fighting in a war, our bodies go
into shock and one can be disorientated. However, as time passes the human brain recovers
completely from what one would think was permanent damage.
In this article, Stix shows how the human brain is much stronger than what we at first
thought. After a disaster, the body releases biochemical (hormones,) that work together with the
body’s genetics and behavior in order to help return the body to emotional equilibrium. In 1917
Sigmund Freud wrote about the necessity about “grief work,” in other words this is when one
focuses on what they have been mourning and they try to work on coping with the death of the
person that they have been mourning. This worked for a while, but eventually scientists became
curious and wanted to know why this worked and other ways to help people in this situation.
Resilience is defined as the ability to bounce back after something traumatic in a short
period of time. Many different parts of the brain contribute to this. The hypothalamus links the
nervous system and the endocrine system. The endocrine system releases a hormone called
corticotropin when the body is stressed, this causes fight or flight. If you are constantly stressed
your body begins to release other hormones such as cortisal, which is produced by the adrenal
glands. These hormones can cause brain damage, particularly in the hippocampus and the
amygdala, this is what causes people to become what we consider to be “emotional and physical
wrecks.” However, certain biochemical can actually lessen the effects of stress hormones and
provide more resilience. For example, DHEA (dehydroepiandrosterone,) lessons the effects of
cortisol, and helps to reduce anxiety. Elevated levels of this also helped reduce the risk of posttraumatic stress disorder in war veterans. It is also believed that a drug that boosts DeltaFosB
might protect against depression that is caused by loneliness, because of studies that were
performed on mice.
The 5-HTT gene is considered to be a “resilience gene.” Research has shown that people
with a lengthier version of this gene are better able to cope with stress and resist depression. This
caused a lot of confusion in 2006 because many people did not understand how stress could be
linked to one gene. However, later evidence no longer supports this claim.
George A. Bonanno started running experiments in the early 1990’s about how people
respond to emotionally to traumatic events. At this time it was believed that the loss of someone
important to you was a cause of great emotional pain and that it left permanent mental scars,
similar to the Freudian theory. He discovered, however, that in a matter of months there were
absolutely no traces of mental scars. He also thought that modern day grief handling can make
things worse and can cause permanent mental damage. This was especially shown when a group
of people has gone through a particularly traumatizing experience such as the Columbine
shootings or the 9/11 attacks. Modern day techniques involve group counseling or “debriefing,”
but if even one person in this group is stressed or upset, it can cause the rest of the group to begin
to feel unsettled. Also when people are part of a traumatizing situation, the stress does not
usually set in until after the event. The human brain allows humans to put away all feelings until
later, allowing them to still be able to function in these situations and save their lives and
possibly other people’s.
The human brain is very resilient, but psychologists and scientists have yet to figure out
what exactly make the brain this way. While they have many theories and even some facts, they
have just skimmed the surface and still have a long way to go before they understand the way
that the human mind works.
Critique
Overall I really enjoyed the piece. It was well written and the topic was thoroughly explained.
It provided many details that I did not yet know and helped me to understand them. However, it
could be confusing at times, as sometimes the information was thrown at you in large chunks of
confusing words. Maybe if my language was of a higher level I would have been able to better
understand it. I still found it interesting though, especially something that we think can help a
person a lot, such as grief counseling may cause more harm than good. This gave me a whole
new perspective on how the mind works and handles stress. Also how the brain works to inhibit
the chemicals that it also releases so that it will not cause damage to the brain seems really
interesting and I wish that the article had gone more in depth with it. Also the scientists in the
article seemed very intent on trying to prove what someone else had already proved. Many of
these experiments also seemed to be concerned with war veterans and post-traumatic stress
disorder. With good reason too, as this is something that many war veterans suffer from. Overall,
I think that this was a very good article, and maybe in the future when I know more about this
topic, I might enjoy this article more.