Ashok Gupta explains how the amygdala triggers protective responses in the body, using examples like mistaking a stick for a snake. He frames chronic fatigue as a problem of the limbic system misinterpreting threats, based on his 2002 medical paper.
Sam, Hello and welcome to today's session. In this session, we'll be looking at a complete medical explanation of the causes of CFS. I've spent the last 10 years researching and refining this explanation, and I really feel that this is what is occurring in the vast majority of people with cfs. Now, to be fair, there are a million and one theories out there. And as to the cause of cfs, with many different researchers claiming that they have found the answer, this can sometimes make recovering from CFS all the more confusing, especially since many patients do tend to recover from different therapies. I do ask that you suspend your disbelief about yet another explanation whilst we go through today's session. Come at it with an open mind. Remember your commitment to do this 100% for six months and only then to judge the results. In fact, a question I get asked often is how come I know somebody else who recovered from a certain therapy, but when I tried it, it didn't work? Now, this is a legitimate question and I hope that this explanation today will not only provide a detailed and logical explanation of cfs, but also offer an explanation of many observations in the real world. For example, why certain therapists seem to help certain patients. The explanation I'm about to go through is the layman explanation of my medical paper. And this medical paper was first published in a medical journal called Medical Hypotheses in the year 2002. I would highly recommend glancing over that medical paper after you have watched today's session, even if you don't have a medical background. I first published this paper online in the year 2000. Before I go into this explanation, let me outline some definitions and some ideas that I will use. We all have a conscious part of our minds and a subconscious part of our minds. The conscious part of your mind is the part of your mind which by definition is conscious and is listening to me now, rationalizing and analyzing what I am saying. This part of your mind is in fact very small. It is more like a spotlight which focuses on one thing at a time, rather than an organic section of your brain that you can actually identify. At the same time, it is normally associated with the cortex or more of the outer part of your brain. Your subconscious mind is the more ancient brain which most animals have, and traditionally it has been associated with just the emotions and memory. However, I would say that the subconscious is more than just that. The subconscious is a combination of all your memories, your bodily functions, your emotional reactions, your beliefs, and much more. Basically, all the stuff that you're not consciously aware of it could also be defined as all the intelligence in your body that makes things work which is outside your conscious awareness or control at any time. In your subconscious brain, there is a brain structure called the amygdala. It is a small almond shaped structure in what is called the limbic system of the brain. And in fact there are two of them. Now, many emotional reactions are handled by the amygdala, including fear and anger. One of its main functions is to protect the body from danger. Now, to do this, it takes in incoming information from the outside world through the five senses and we shall call these stimuli. It then interprets whether these stimuli represent a threat. So on the left hand side in this diagram, you can see that stimuli come in from the left through the senses. All the information is then put together in a brain structure called the thalamus. The thalamus then sends this information all packaged up to be interpreted in the amygdala. And then the amygdala creates an appropriate response. If something is dangerous. It then creates a protective response using connections that it has to many other brain structures and the whole body. In the next diagram, you can see that there are incoming stimuli on the left and they get interpreted by the amygdala as to whether something is dangerous or not. And then the amygdala triggers responses on the right hand side. Let me give you some examples of how the amygdala works in practice. In the first example, imagine you were in a forest and you saw a stick on the ground that looked like a snake. The amygdala would take in information from your eyes and decide that it could be a snake and therefore will instantly make you feel the fear response and make you feel like running away from the stick. In this first example, we can see that the amygdala is not always right and it always errs on the side of caution sometimes. In the second example, imagine when you step out onto the road and there is a bus coming towards you. Your senses hear the bus and then your eyes see the bus transferring information instantly to your amygdala through the thalamus. Now, the amygdala has to make a split second decision as to what to do and it will send instantly electrical signals to your legs to get you to jump back onto the pavement. All of this will happen in milliseconds without your conscious mind even being involved. Now, can you see the benefit of this? If your conscious mind was involved, it would take too long to process all the information and the bus would be too close. Now think about it. What happens when you first realise that you nearly got run over by a bus? I'm sure you kind of feel that shudder in your body as you quickly step back onto the pavement. That shudder will probably be accompanied by by some anxiety or fear. Basically a feeling of oh my God, I nearly got run over by a bus. Now, let me explain what is happening here in this diagram. The amygdala has sent a message down to the conscious mind, filling the conscious mind with fearful thoughts on the right hand side. That's when you have that thought of, oh my God, I nearly got run over by a bus. I must be more careful next time. And you shudder with anxiety at what might have happened. The reason the amygdala does this is because it wants to check that buses are dangerous. It knows that you are more intelligent than it is and there might be a reason why buses are not dangerous anymore. It had made a previous decision that buses are dangerous, but maybe things have changed. So it enters into a dialogue with your conscious mind as soon as this happens consciously, where you consciously feel that frightened feeling. If you don't question or interrupt the frightened feeling, you unknowingly send a message back to your amygdala confirming that yes, it was correct, buses are dangerous. It must protect you. Next time there is a bus. The logic the amygdala uses is, is that if I can create worrisome thoughts and feelings in the conscious mind with the emotion that I've given the conscious mind, and if those emotions aren't interrupted, then I must be triggering the correct protective responses. If the conscious mind does not challenge how I made it feel, then that must mean that my actions were correct. That's what the amygdala says. However, if the conscious mind isn't bothered by the danger and thinks it's no big deal anymore that a bus is coming and doesn't buy into that fearful feeling, but instead interrupts it, then the amiga thinks, well, maybe buses aren't that dangerous anymore.
