Increased somatic sensations are associated with reduced limb ownership

ABSTRACTIncreased sensitivity to light is common following concussion. Viewing a flickering light can also produce uncomfortable somatic sensations like nausea or headache. Here we examined effects evoked by viewing a patterned, flickering screen in a cohort of 81 uninjured youth athletes and 84 youth with concussion. We used exploratory factor analysis and identified two primary dimensions of variation: the presence or absence of visually evoked effects, and variation in the tendency to manifest effects that localized to the eyes (e.g., eye watering), versus more generalized neurologic symptoms (e.g., headache). Based on these two primary dimensions, we grouped participants into three categories of evoked symptomatology: no effects, eye-predominant effects, and brain-predominant effects. A similar proportion of participants reported eye-predominant effects in the uninjured (33.3%) and concussion (32.1%) groups. By contrast, participants who experienced brain-predominant effects were almost entirely from the concussion group (1.2% of uninjured, 35.7% of concussed). The presence of brain-predominant effects was associated with a higher concussion symptom burden and reduced performance on visio-vestibular tasks. Our findings indicate that the experience of negative constitutional, somatic sensations in response to a dynamic visual stimulus is a salient marker of concussion and is indicative of more severe concussion symptomatology. We speculate that differences in visually evoked effects reflect varying levels of activation of the trigeminal nociceptive system.

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Intervening in the Intergenerational Transmission of Trauma by Targeting Maternal Emotional Dysregulation With EMDR Therapy

Journal of EMDR Practice and Research ◽

10.1891/1933-3196.12.3.142 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 12 (3) ◽

pp. 142-157 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Mii Okawara ◽

Sandra L. Paulsen

Keyword(s):

Negative Affect ◽

Intergenerational Transmission ◽

Case Reports ◽

Emotional Dysregulation ◽

Hypothetical Model ◽

Attachment Trauma ◽

Somatic Sensation ◽

Stored Information ◽

Emdr Therapy ◽

Somatic Sensations

Many studies have shown that the relationship between child and caregivers is critical for healthy development of the child’s brain function, and for intergenerational transmission of attachment. Here, we propose a useful eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) target for treatment of maternal emotional dysregulation that can cause maltreatment of the child, with the goal of interrupting intergenerational transmission of attachment trauma. First, we use schematics to demonstrate a hypothetical model of the interaction between a child’s attachment behavior and a mother’s bonding behavior. This schematic shows that the child’s physiologic reaction activates or triggers the mother’s negative affect and somatic sensations in her limbic system and brain stem and that, in turn, evokes the mother’s maltreatment behavior. The negative affect and somatic sensation (maternal emotional dysregulation) are Dysfunctionally Stored Information (DSI) that was produced in the mother’s past experience. We propose that the mother’s negative affect and somatic sensations activated by the child’s behaviors can be useful targets for EMDR therapy based on this hypothetical model. Two Japanese case reports (mothers with 4-year-old daughters) are described to illustrate this application. Further discussion highlights the feature of Japanese cultural relationship and the dissociation, and the meaning and scope of targeting maternal emotional dysregulation with EMDR therapy.

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