Exploring the role of the nervous system for understanding depression in spinal cord injury
Synopsis "Exploring the role of the nervous system for understanding depression in spinal cord injury"
The Neurovisceral Integration theory conceptualizes the nervous system's role inunderstanding health and well-being. The theory describes a set of neural structures, including the central and the autonomic nervous system involved in generating goalorientedresponses (Thayer & Lane, 2000, 2009). These goal-oriented responsesregulate the affect and cognitive processes (Thayer & Lane, 2009) influencing mentalhealth. The thesis explores the nervous system's role in depression in spinal cord injury.The Neurovisceral Integration theory postulates that the central and autonomicnervous system(CNS-ANS) interact in affect and cognitive processes. This CNS-ANSinteraction inhibits ongoing behavior, providing regulation and flexibility for goalorientedbehavior(Thayer & Lane, 2000, 2009). Affect is a psychophysiologicalconstruct and studied using the dimension of valence and arousal.(Appelhans &Luecken, 2006a; Kuppens et al., 2013; Thayer & Lane, 2000). Valence denotes theindividual's understanding of the pleasantness and unpleasantness of a stimulus, whereas arousal denotes the activation of the autonomic nervous system in response tothe stimuli. (Hagemann et al., 2003a; Thayer, Hansen, Saus-Rose, et al., 2009; Thayer& Lane, 2000, 2009; Thayer & Siegle, 2002). Cognition refers to the mental processessuch as thinking, problem-solving, and decision-making that benefit from inhibitorycontrol. The inhibitory control is required for an individual to shift attention fromexisting behavior to goal-oriented behavior (Thayer & Lane, 2009).
