Learn About the Two Pathways to Anxiety That You Can Learn to Manage – Part I

Do you know what creates anxiety in the brain? 

Are you aware of how you can have an effect on the processes in the brain that manufactures your anxiety?

Read on to learn the two separate pathways in the brain that give rise to anxiety.  Let’s talk neuroscience and anxiety.

Amygdala Reacts Quickly

The first is referred to as “Bottom Up” triggers for emotional reactions.  There is a perceptual trigger that yields an anxiety response from your brain’s amygdala. 

The amygdala is an almond shape structure deep within the brain that responds to sights, sounds, taste, smells and touch and very quickly evokes the fear response. This is sometimes referred to as the old or primitive part of the brain.

Imagine walking through the woods and suddenly seeing a snake in front of you. In milliseconds your amygdala will be activated and you jump back to avoid the snake in your path.

It is important to note that the amygdala does not think, it simply reacts quickly to protect you from danger.  

The second pathway is referred to “Top Down.”  Basically, this is the pathway from the new brain or neocortex.  This is where your higher-level thinking occurs and provides meaning for the amygdala.

If you are not treating both of these areas, your anxiety is likely to persist and may even become chronic.

Thinking Cortex In Red

Everyone experiences anxiety through both of the above pathways.  One pathway may be more active than the other for some anxiety sufferers.

Being able to recognize how the different pathways are operating can assist you in your overcoming anxiety problems.

Importantly, different pathways respond to different types of treatments.  One treatment may not have an effect on the area of the brain that is triggering or causing persistent anxiety. Another will.

Some have described it as “looking in your bathroom cabinet to figure out why your lawn mower won’t start.”

So, when you are working with a therapist on overcoming anxiety, it is critical that you be focusing upon the parts of the brain that:

·      Help you understand your anxiety experience.

·      Clarify for you the important processes that underlie your anxiety experiences.

·      Help you learn how to change the anxiety response you have been experiencing.

Both the top and bottom pathways are activated by sensory information.  The things that the brain collects from your senses that gives the amygdala information about the world around you.  As noted above, that would be sound, smells, sight, taste, hearing and touch.

 The pathway of the cortex travels from the thalamus (the brains way station) brain and eventually gets to the amygdala which produces the response of anxiety.

The other, or faster pathway runs directly from the thalamus to the amygdala.  Thus, the amygdala serves both pathways, although differently. 

One pathway is fast and does not think and the other is slower but thinks.

If we are suffering from anxiety, we want to be able to modify certain aspects of these circuits to help us manage our feelings more effectively.

Anxiety Pathways in the Brain

As noted, the amygdala pathway is fast and the cortex slower.  Importantly, the cortex has few connections to the amygdala but the amygdala has many connections to the cortex.

Because of fewer connections, the cortex or thinking part of the brain has fewer ways to influence the amygdala.  

Conversely, the amygdala has many connections to influence the cortex.

In our earlier example with the snake, the cortex realizes it is only a coiled wire.  But, this took time.  There was a time difference and the person will react before they think.   The cortex “knows” that the anxiety doesn’t make any sense but still reacts due to the faster pathway to the amygdala.

In therapy, the skilled therapist will help you to become aware of these two pathways.  This helps in gaining a better perspective on you anxiety condition and how to manage it.

Facts About the Amygdala

·      Amygdala is the Greek word for almond.  The amygdala is almond shaped.

·      We have an Amygdala in each hemisphere or side of the brain.

·      Each one is the size of an almond.

·      If you drew a line straight back from your eye; another line straight in from your middle ear you would locate the amygdala

·      The Amygdala is not only involved with anxiety but also sexual behavior, anger, fear, love and attachment or bonding with others.

More Amygdala Facts

·      Important for us is to know is that the amygdala attaches emotional significance to objects.

·      The attachment is both positive and negative. Examples might include loved and feared objects.

·      This article is only about attaching objects to fear or anxiety.

·      It is kind of like a Post-It Notes to our memory

·      Interestingly, the amygdala is adjacent to the hippocampus in our brain.

·      The hippocampus (which is Greek for its sea horse shape) is where all memory is first processed.

So, to summarize, the amygdala is involved in both the amygdala and cortex pathways to anxiety.

Like the engineer on a train, it controls many different reactions that we have in our body and brain.

These include:

·      Our fight/fear/fight response to perceived danger.

·      Interpretations in the brain to reduce scary interpretations

·      Our ability to reframe or rethink our experiences

·      Being able to develop realistic expectations about our ability to control our behavior.

In Part II we will discuss more about the anxiety response related to these brain structure and how you and your therapist can work together as a team to reduce unwanted anxiety.

Go Home

or

Anxiety Treatment

 

 If you wish to learn more about treatment of anxiety, please contact us. We are here to help.