Amygdala And PTSD In The Play 'Stranger Things'

In the 2016 science-fiction drama Stranger Things, a young girl named eleven was held in captivity and raised in the Hawkins National Laboratory, a secret research facility. She was capable of psychokinesis and mind-reading, and was forced to use her powers against her will as she was a test subject, being punished with physical abuse and confinement if she refused. Eleven escaped but often had flashbacks while on the run, when reminded of the harm inflicted on her whilst in captivity. She also suffered from severe anxiety, a result of the betrayal and abuse she faced. Though fictitious, eleven gives us good insight into Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and how it manifests.

Who’s got it?
PTSD is a common anxiety disorder that 8% of the
This is responsible for asking questions such as “Is it safe? Do I need to run? Should I be worried?”. It collates information from different senses and effects an appropriate response, especially in fearful situations. If the amygdala deems a situation threatening, it emits stress signals which move throughout the body triggering reflex responses such as dilating pupils and increasing blood flow to alert and prepare the body for danger. The amygdala also highlights important events in a memory, passing this information on to the hippocampus, telling it to store this memory. PTSD sufferers have a hyperactive amygdala that remains active for long periods, increasing stress and anxiety. The affected amygdala focuses on emitting stress signals and memory formation is halted as this is non-essential in danger. This keeps the person on their toes and anxious, while memory-formation is
The neurotransmitter (a chemical in the nervous system that carries a message) serotonin is thought to promote mood. In a region that uses serotonin, there are also reuptake protein channels that remove serotonin ensuring that the level of it is regulated. SSRIs prevent this reuptake of serotonin, increasing its concentration in the region, heightening the mood of the patient.

A common therapy for a person with PTSD is cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT). The treatment involves therapists who help the patient understand, make sense of and change the way they think about their trauma, with the aim of removing the association between trigger stimuli and the trauma. The therapy involves multiple sessions for up to six months. CBT takes advantage of brain plasticity  the ability of the brain to change how it is ‘wired’.

Eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing (EMDR) is new and created specifically to treat PTSD. It involves the patient verbally recalling their trauma whilst simultaneously making left-right eye movements. There is discussion about how this works. Some think it is the simultaneous stimulation of both left and right hemispheres of the brain while others postulate that it is the way a memory is restored after processing by working memory. However, the treatment has been widely accepted by mental health professionals as viable and