Danger center in the human
brain.
Danger center in the human
brain.
Cet article est écrit par un nouvel adhérent à l'Institut, le Professeur Konstantin Trinus de l'Université de Kiev, qui a conduit, avec des experts internationnaux de la société de neurootologie et d'équilibriométrie, une enquète sur les incidences neurologiques dues à Tchernobyl1 . Il nous livre une synthèse en anglais.
NDLR
Definitions
Damage might be regarded as a destruction of the body or its parts. Damage might be total or partial, in the latter case the percentage of the damage might be considered. Damaging factors might be classified as mechanical, physical, chemical and biological. In human beings we can also speak about psychogenic damage.
Danger might be defined as high probability of the damage. Subjective expectation of danger is caled Anxiety.
Human perception of the danger
For prediction of the dangerous situations the body has sensory systems. Mechanical damages are percepted with somatosensory system. Some of the physical damages : heat, very low temperatures are also percepted with the somatosensory (hot and cold) receptors located in the skin.
Other possible mechanical damages (ruining the rock and montains, approaching the storm, huragans, etc) might be predicted from the information perceptedwith vision and hearing.
Earthquakes are percepted with vestibular system. Many animals feels anxious at the approaching earthquake.
Many discussions are held around the problem of the magnetic sensor in the human brain. Two structures are possibles candidates :
Chemical substances are altering metabolism in the body. These changes are resulted in the changes of the red-ox potential. Specific sensor of it is hair cell of the vestibular system. In such a manner vestibular system might be named the sensor of the chemical damages, including also biochemical: viral, bacterialfungal and protozoic toxins.
Taste and smell also help us to discriminate which substances to be consumed or avoided. Smell is also important in emotional formation, including sexual and agressive behavior.
Arousas level of danger center - anxiety
There might be possible at least two polar situations : high level and low level of danger. In first occasion the expectation of danger does exist, and it means preparation either ti fight or to escape. The opposite situtaion is absence of danger. Ifthere is no anticipation of damage, sexual, eating, drinking, intellectual behavior is dominating. So, we can speak aboutthe level of danger and also about the level of danger evaluation. So, we are speaking about the arousal level of the danger center. The questions is about the correlation of the danger evaluation to the level of the danger. The level of the danger might be evaluated correctly or incorrectly. If incorrectly it might be either underestimated or overestimated. Both situations might be normal or pathological. In normal situation incorrect estimation of danger level might be because of many reasons : lack of information, unusual environment, etc.
Pathological situation depends of the mental condition of the subject.
Under estimation of the danger might cause technogenic catastrophy.
Overestimation of the danger cause psychogenic anxiety, which is regarded as illness. Special occasion is psychogenic public panic, for example in the cinema somebody cried about fire and the audience rushed to the exit traumatizing each other.
The question is how to differentiate the people who underestimate the danger? What are the criteria of the people who are very susceptible or, from the other side stable to the panic situation. Another problem is training of the correct danger estimation.
Outputs of danger center
Final reaction to danger might depend from at least three important inputs :
The reactions might be classified into aggressive and escaping types.
Agressiveness is possible when we can destroy the damaging factor, for example kill the mosquito. If the rock is failing, it is better to step aside.Intermediate profiles are multiple and the percentage of agressiveness might be sometimes difficult to be established exactly.
Danger escape satisfaction from it
Danger is not stable, it is dynamic feature.We stepped aside from the place of failing rock and there is no danger for us any longer. We fill satisfaction because of the danger passed by. Satisfaction sensation vary individually. Some people have low level of this teaction, others -highintensive. In some of them the level of the reaction is adequate to the risk level. There are the people, who have exaggerated satisfaction after danger or even in the dangerous situation. From this point of view the extreme sports are becoming understandable. From all the above mentionned the whole behavior might be regarded as balancing between danger and satisfaction.
The speculations presented pose many problems about he individual attitude to the risk situations of diffrerent individuals, development of the diagnostic methods evaluation of the stuff possibilities and training the adequate danger evaluation.
K. Trinus
Université de Kiev
trinus@ukrpack.net
