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From helplessness to controllability: toward a neuroscience of resilience
“Learned helplessness” refers to debilitating outcomes, such as passivity and increased fear, that follow an uncontrollable adverse event, but do not when that event is controllable. The original explanation argued that when events are uncontrollable the animal learns that outcomes are independent o...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Frontiers Media S.A.
2023
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10205144/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37229393 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1170417 |
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author | Baratta, Michael V. Seligman, Martin E. P. Maier, Steven F. |
author_facet | Baratta, Michael V. Seligman, Martin E. P. Maier, Steven F. |
author_sort | Baratta, Michael V. |
collection | PubMed |
description | “Learned helplessness” refers to debilitating outcomes, such as passivity and increased fear, that follow an uncontrollable adverse event, but do not when that event is controllable. The original explanation argued that when events are uncontrollable the animal learns that outcomes are independent of its behavior, and that this is the active ingredient in producing the effects. Controllable adverse events, in contrast, fail to produce these outcomes because they lack the active uncontrollability element. Recent work on the neural basis of helplessness, however, takes the opposite view. Prolonged exposure to aversive stimulation per se produces the debilitation by potent activation of serotonergic neurons in the brainstem dorsal raphe nucleus. Debilitation is prevented with an instrumental controlling response, which activates prefrontal circuitry detecting control and subsequently blunting the dorsal raphe nucleus response. Furthermore, learning control alters the prefrontal response to future adverse events, thereby preventing debilitation and producing long-term resiliency. The general implications of these neuroscience findings may apply to psychological therapy and prevention, in particular by suggesting the importance of cognitions and control, rather than habits of control. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-10205144 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-102051442023-05-24 From helplessness to controllability: toward a neuroscience of resilience Baratta, Michael V. Seligman, Martin E. P. Maier, Steven F. Front Psychiatry Psychiatry “Learned helplessness” refers to debilitating outcomes, such as passivity and increased fear, that follow an uncontrollable adverse event, but do not when that event is controllable. The original explanation argued that when events are uncontrollable the animal learns that outcomes are independent of its behavior, and that this is the active ingredient in producing the effects. Controllable adverse events, in contrast, fail to produce these outcomes because they lack the active uncontrollability element. Recent work on the neural basis of helplessness, however, takes the opposite view. Prolonged exposure to aversive stimulation per se produces the debilitation by potent activation of serotonergic neurons in the brainstem dorsal raphe nucleus. Debilitation is prevented with an instrumental controlling response, which activates prefrontal circuitry detecting control and subsequently blunting the dorsal raphe nucleus response. Furthermore, learning control alters the prefrontal response to future adverse events, thereby preventing debilitation and producing long-term resiliency. The general implications of these neuroscience findings may apply to psychological therapy and prevention, in particular by suggesting the importance of cognitions and control, rather than habits of control. Frontiers Media S.A. 2023-05-03 /pmc/articles/PMC10205144/ /pubmed/37229393 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1170417 Text en Copyright © 2023 Baratta, Seligman and Maier. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
spellingShingle | Psychiatry Baratta, Michael V. Seligman, Martin E. P. Maier, Steven F. From helplessness to controllability: toward a neuroscience of resilience |
title | From helplessness to controllability: toward a neuroscience of resilience |
title_full | From helplessness to controllability: toward a neuroscience of resilience |
title_fullStr | From helplessness to controllability: toward a neuroscience of resilience |
title_full_unstemmed | From helplessness to controllability: toward a neuroscience of resilience |
title_short | From helplessness to controllability: toward a neuroscience of resilience |
title_sort | from helplessness to controllability: toward a neuroscience of resilience |
topic | Psychiatry |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10205144/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37229393 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1170417 |
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