The Neuroscience of Being Human
The Neuroscience of Hypervigilance
Why the traumatised brain cannot stop scanning for danger, how the amygdala recalibrates its threat threshold after overwhelming experience, and what it costs the nervous system to be permanently on guard
1,416-word article with 8 Harvard references.
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Hypervigilance is not anxiety. It is not nervousness. It is the brain's threat-detection system running at full capacity in the absence of an identifiable threat. The person is not imagining danger. Their amygdala has recalibrated its threshold based on lived experience and concluded that the world requires constant monitoring. This article examines the neuroscience of this state: how the locus coeruleus and the noradrenergic system maintain a permanent state of arousal, why the superior colliculus and the pulvinar redirect visual attention towards potential threats before conscious awareness kicks in, and what happens to the body and the brain when the alarm never switches off.
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