Cognitive Challenges


This page is incomplete. It displays memoes and/or notes.

Note Text: 153 Pain distracts

It has also been found that focally applied brief painful stimulus generates a global suppression of spontaneous oscillations in somatosensory, motor, and visual areas, indicating that pain induces a widespread change in cortical function and excitability (Ploner, Gross, Timmermann, Pollok, & Schnitzler, 2005; Raij et a....

Gatchel, R. J., Peng, Y. B., Peters, M. L., Fuchs, P. N., and Turk, D. C., "The BioPsychoSocial Approach to Chronic Pain: Scientific Advances and Future Directions", Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 133, No. 4: 2007 (Biopsychosocial Approach to Chronic Pain.pdf), 595

Note Text: 1518 Lack of control and illusory patterns

“It is interesting to note that lacking control increases something called illusory pattern recognition. That is, when individuals are induced to feel a lack of control, they tend to see meaningful patterns in random data.” [23]

Trivers, Robert, "The Folly of Fools", Basic Books, 2011, 23

Note Text: 1548 Immune system affects learning

“In vertebrates we know that cytokines produced by the immune system can directly affect the hippocampus and reduce memory consolidation, but the functional meaning is obscure. We know that parasitic infection has a dramatic and negative effect on learning abilities. This effect must result because the activated immune....

Trivers, Robert, "The Folly of Fools", Basic Books, 2011, 114

Note Text: 1793 Emotional brain is isolated under high stress

When memory traces of the original sounds, images, and sensations are reactivated, the frontal lobe shuts down, including, as we’ve seen, the region necessary to put feelings into words, the region that creates our sense of location in time, and the thalamus, which integrates the raw data of incoming sensations. At this....

Van Der Kolk, Bessel, "The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma", Penguin Books, 2015, 178

Note Text: 1812 Trauma moves focus away from everyday life

Recent studies of Australian combat veterans show that their brains are rewired to be alert for emergencies, at the expense of being focused on the small details of everyday life.

Van Der Kolk, Bessel, "The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma", Penguin Books, 2015, 223

End of included memoes/notes



Within this section...

Direct Effects of Pain on Cognitive Function (This page is incomplete.)

The Demands of Physical Adaptation

The Demands of Social Adaptation

Or skip to...

Emotional Costs (This page is incomplete.)