Avoidant Neurobiology
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Introduction
The human brain acts like a complex computer, organizing its various specialties in different areas. Depending on the activation frequency or volume of the brain, different people may experience different sensations for the same target. For example, the amygdala is involved in assessing threats and gets activated in situations that seem threatening, but for someone with avoidant attachment, the amygdala might kick in even when there’s no real danger. What’s going on is that the amygdala relies on past memories and misinterprets a situation as a threat, but this memory recall process isn’t perfect. In this post I will try to explain some components of the brain that are different in an avoidant individual.
I have already mentioned the amygdala, so I will next mention the hippocampus. The hippocampus, responsible for memory storage and organization, has less grey matter in avoidant individuals than in those who are secure. This suggests that avoidant people may perceive situations negatively, even when things are actually okay. Additionally, the hippocampus is involved in how infants create memories, which can also affect their attachment styles as they later mature. In worse case scenarios they may activate in a similar pattern as a trauma patient, and distort crucial memories.
The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and midcingulate cortex (MCC) are both involved in decision making although they have different specific duties.The ACC focuses on managing risks through identifying the situation and the MCC handles cognitive control and responses to challenges (Holec et al., 2014; Shackman et al., 2011). When the ACC activates during negative social interactions or conflict situations, it triggers the MCC, and thus causes avoidant people to foster imagined emotional disputes that could lead to bad outcomes. A similar rationale applies to the changes observed in the prefrontal lobe and superior parietal lobule which also have similar duties! Finally, the striatum, which is in charge of processing the emotions that occur with social reward, shuts down in avoidant people. This suggests that they tend to dissociate themselves with positive emotions, which causes them to spiral into a negative loop.
In the end, the striatum shutting down when faced with positive social feedback shows that someone who's avoidant processes social rewards without much thought. In conclusion, the brain's chemistry and structure of an avoidant person often gets unusually tense in situations that involve emotional conflict or negativity, while also downplaying any potential social interactions.
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