From helplessness to controllability: toward a neuroscience of resilience

Frontiers in Psychiatry

Psychiatry

Steven F. Maier¹  Michael V. Baratta¹  Martin E. P. Seligman² 

[1] Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, United States;Positive Psychology Center, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States;

关键词: learned helplessness;    stressor controllability;    medial prefrontal cortex;    dorsal raphe nucleus;    depression;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1170417

 received in 2023-02-20, accepted in 2023-04-13,  发布年份 2023

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

“Learned helplessness” refers to debilitating outcomes, such as passivity and increased fear, that follow an uncontrollable adverse event, but do not when that event is controllable. The original explanation argued that when events are uncontrollable the animal learns that outcomes are independent of its behavior, and that this is the active ingredient in producing the effects. Controllable adverse events, in contrast, fail to produce these outcomes because they lack the active uncontrollability element. Recent work on the neural basis of helplessness, however, takes the opposite view. Prolonged exposure to aversive stimulation per se produces the debilitation by potent activation of serotonergic neurons in the brainstem dorsal raphe nucleus. Debilitation is prevented with an instrumental controlling response, which activates prefrontal circuitry detecting control and subsequently blunting the dorsal raphe nucleus response. Furthermore, learning control alters the prefrontal response to future adverse events, thereby preventing debilitation and producing long-term resiliency. The general implications of these neuroscience findings may apply to psychological therapy and prevention, in particular by suggesting the importance of cognitions and control, rather than habits of control.

【 授权许可】

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Copyright © 2023 Baratta, Seligman and Maier.