Clinical Manifestations of Body Memories: The Impact of Past Bodily Experiences on Mental Health
Bodily experiences such as the feeling of touch, pain or inner signals of the body are deeply emotional and activate brain networks that mediate their perception and higher-order processing. While the ad hoc perception of bodily signals and their influence on behavior is empirically well studied, th...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2022-05-01
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| Series: | Brain Sciences |
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| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3425/12/5/594 |
| _version_ | 1797501184331743232 |
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| author | Antje Gentsch Esther Kuehn |
| author_facet | Antje Gentsch Esther Kuehn |
| author_sort | Antje Gentsch |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Bodily experiences such as the feeling of touch, pain or inner signals of the body are deeply emotional and activate brain networks that mediate their perception and higher-order processing. While the ad hoc perception of bodily signals and their influence on behavior is empirically well studied, there is a knowledge gap on how we store and retrieve bodily experiences that we perceived in the past, and how this influences our everyday life. Here, we explore the hypothesis that negative body memories, that is, negative bodily experiences of the past that are stored in memory and influence behavior, contribute to the development of somatic manifestations of mental health problems including somatic symptoms, traumatic re-experiences or dissociative symptoms. By combining knowledge from the areas of cognitive neuroscience and clinical neuroscience with insights from psychotherapy, we identify Clinical Body Memory (CBM) mechanisms that specify how mental health problems could be driven by corporeal experiences stored in memory. The major argument is that the investigation of the neuronal mechanisms that underlie the storage and retrieval of body memories provides us with empirical access to reduce the negative impact of body memories on mental health. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-10T03:14:43Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-8eb6a1d44dd44712ab11f8193bf1f571 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2076-3425 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-10T03:14:43Z |
| publishDate | 2022-05-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Brain Sciences |
| spelling | doaj.art-8eb6a1d44dd44712ab11f8193bf1f5712023-11-23T10:17:37ZengMDPI AGBrain Sciences2076-34252022-05-0112559410.3390/brainsci12050594Clinical Manifestations of Body Memories: The Impact of Past Bodily Experiences on Mental HealthAntje Gentsch0Esther Kuehn1Department of Psychology, General and Experimental Psychology, LMU Munich, 80802 Munich, GermanyInstitute for Cognitive Neurology and Dementia Research (IKND), Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, 39120 Magdeburg, GermanyBodily experiences such as the feeling of touch, pain or inner signals of the body are deeply emotional and activate brain networks that mediate their perception and higher-order processing. While the ad hoc perception of bodily signals and their influence on behavior is empirically well studied, there is a knowledge gap on how we store and retrieve bodily experiences that we perceived in the past, and how this influences our everyday life. Here, we explore the hypothesis that negative body memories, that is, negative bodily experiences of the past that are stored in memory and influence behavior, contribute to the development of somatic manifestations of mental health problems including somatic symptoms, traumatic re-experiences or dissociative symptoms. By combining knowledge from the areas of cognitive neuroscience and clinical neuroscience with insights from psychotherapy, we identify Clinical Body Memory (CBM) mechanisms that specify how mental health problems could be driven by corporeal experiences stored in memory. The major argument is that the investigation of the neuronal mechanisms that underlie the storage and retrieval of body memories provides us with empirical access to reduce the negative impact of body memories on mental health.https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3425/12/5/594somatic symptomspsychosomatictraumaemotionhippocampusinsula |
| spellingShingle | Antje Gentsch Esther Kuehn Clinical Manifestations of Body Memories: The Impact of Past Bodily Experiences on Mental Health Brain Sciences somatic symptoms psychosomatic trauma emotion hippocampus insula |
| title | Clinical Manifestations of Body Memories: The Impact of Past Bodily Experiences on Mental Health |
| title_full | Clinical Manifestations of Body Memories: The Impact of Past Bodily Experiences on Mental Health |
| title_fullStr | Clinical Manifestations of Body Memories: The Impact of Past Bodily Experiences on Mental Health |
| title_full_unstemmed | Clinical Manifestations of Body Memories: The Impact of Past Bodily Experiences on Mental Health |
| title_short | Clinical Manifestations of Body Memories: The Impact of Past Bodily Experiences on Mental Health |
| title_sort | clinical manifestations of body memories the impact of past bodily experiences on mental health |
| topic | somatic symptoms psychosomatic trauma emotion hippocampus insula |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3425/12/5/594 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT antjegentsch clinicalmanifestationsofbodymemoriestheimpactofpastbodilyexperiencesonmentalhealth AT estherkuehn clinicalmanifestationsofbodymemoriestheimpactofpastbodilyexperiencesonmentalhealth |