Negative emotions and psychosomatics

Medical aspects of emotions and their properties

From the standpoint of normal physiology, any emotion has two main directions of implementation in the body:

1. Ascending direction. Impulses are directed to the cerebral cortex, which externally manifests as higher nervous activity and subjective awareness of the experience.
2. Descending direction. Excitation spreads to the periphery, affecting practically all internal organs and tissues.

Negative emotions pose the greatest medical danger. The main pathogenic emotions are generally considered to be anger, melancholy, and the feeling of fear. Their destructive potential is due to specific undesirable properties.

First, this is prolonged after-effect. Unlike many other physiological reactions, a negative emotion does not fade immediately after the cessation of the irritating factor (trigger). The emotional trace can persist for many hours and even days.

Second, negative experiences possess the capacity for summation. If a negative emotion arises repeatedly before the previous emotional trace has faded, their effects overlap, and the total duration and intensity of excitation increase significantly.

Mechanisms of stagnant emotion formation

With frequent and repeated manifestations of negative experiences, a dangerous neurophysiological phenomenon develops — the emotion transitions into a stagnant form. This state represents stationary, sustained excitation of brain structures.

The neurophysiological basis of a stagnant emotion lies in prolonged circulation of excitation through closed neural circuits of limbic formations.

As a result of such prolonged impulse circulation, structural and functional rearrangements occur:

• Persistent changes arise in the sensitivity of neurons to specific signaling molecules — neurotransmitters and neuropeptides.
• This globally alters brain functions.
• Clinically, such changes often manifest as various neurotic disorders.

Impact on visceral functions and psychosomatics development

Stagnant emotional excitation inevitably affects the work of internal organs. The pathogenesis of these disorders is as follows:

1. Powerful streams of descending excitation are formed from the limbic system. They descend upon internal organs, primarily affecting the uncontrollable (autonomic) components of emotions.
2. Physiological mechanisms of homeostatic self-regulation initially attempt to counteract these pathological influences.
3. However, with prolonged and continuous pressure, resources become depleted. A predictable failure of the "weak link" in the system of autonomic self-regulation occurs.

The outcome of this breakdown is the formation of psychosomatic diseases. The most frequent manifestations include arterial hypertension, cardiac arrhythmias, and peptic ulcer disease of the gastrointestinal tract. Additionally, asthma attacks, severe skin diseases, sexual dysfunctions, and various autoimmune disorders can arise against the background of emotional exhaustion.

Conflict situation as a triggering mechanism

The leading factor provoking the formation of a stagnant negative emotion is a conflict situation.

In the physiological sense, a conflict situation is a condition in which a subject experiences an expressed social or biological need, but completely lacks the opportunity to obtain the leading adaptive result to satisfy it. Prolonged and continuous conflicts pose the greatest danger to health.

The dynamics of the pathological process development goes through five consecutive stages:

1. Adaptive reaction. Negative emotional excitation increases, designed to mobilize forces to overcome the arisen barrier.
2. Generalization. If the conflict is not resolved, excitation begins to encompass practically the entire brain.
3. Descending influence. Generalized excitation massively spreads to internal organs.
4. Reverse afferentation. Organs working in an altered, stress mode send increasing feedback signaling back to the brain.
5. Outcome. Excessive bottom-up impulses support top-down excitation — a pathological "vicious circle" of emotional excitation is formed, which can be extremely difficult to break without medical assistance.

Briefly: answers to topical questions

Class and exam questions

What else to study on this topic

• Mechanisms of altered neuronal sensitivity to neuropeptides
• Specifics of descending influences on the autonomic nervous system
• Principles of homeostatic self-regulation
• The role of reverse afferentation in maintaining the vicious circle

Other topics in the "Emotions" section

Prepared by WhiteCoat Pro faculty in accordance with the medical school curriculum. For educational purposes only.