Emotional atrophy is the gradual weakening of one's ability to feel, process, and express emotions, much like a muscle withers from disuse, leading to emotional numbness, reduced empathy, detachment, and difficulty forming deep connections, often stemming from prolonged emotional suppression, trauma, or overwhelming stress. It's characterized by a blunted affect, where individuals might seem indifferent or robotic, struggling with joy, sadness, or even feeling love and pain.
If you are feeling unmotivated, disinterested, or disconnected from things like your job, your hobbies, or your relationships, you may be feeling apathy. Apathy is characterized by feeling indifference or emotional numbness towards aspects of life.
What is brain atrophy? People with brain atrophy, also called cerebral atrophy, lose brain cells (neurons), and connections between their brain cells and brain volume often decreases. This loss can lead to problems with thinking, memory and performing everyday tasks.
Decrease in the size of a cell, tissue, organ, or multiple organs, associated with a variety of pathological conditions such as abnormal cellular changes, ischemia, malnutrition, or hormonal changes.
Being emotionally stunted may appear as avoiding deep talks, responding defensively, or having difficulty accepting responsibility. Amira says, “These patterns usually trace back to early relational experiences and learned emotional avoidance.”
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The different types of atrophy include Glandular Atrophy, Vaginal Atrophy, Skeletal Muscle Atrophy, Spinal Muscular Atrophy, and Multiple System Atrophy. Skeletal Muscle Atrophy is separated into either Disuse Atrophy or Neurogenic Atrophy. There are treatments that can address the different types of atrophy.
Physiologic atrophy is caused by not using the muscles enough. This type of atrophy can often be reversed with exercise and better nutrition. People who are most affected are those who: Have seated jobs, health problems that limit movement, or decreased activity levels.
Symptoms include a decrease in muscle mass, one limb being smaller than the other, and numbness, weakness and tingling in your limbs.
Definition. Atrophy refers to loss of cells of any tissue. In the brain, atrophy refers to a loss of neurons that may be generalized (e.g., diffuse atrophy) or focal, reflecting circumscribed regional cell loss. With atrophy, there is also a corresponding loss of neural connections (synapses).
Anxiety is associated with significant atrophy in multiple brain regions, with corresponding ventricular enlargement. Future research should investigate if anxiety-related changes to brain morphology contribute to greater Alzheimer's disease risk.
Both the tragic components and the intellectual challenge of depression have deepened in the last decade with a series of high-visibility reports that indicate prolonged, major depression is associated with atrophy within the central nervous system.
Mental health conditions: Anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and dissociative disorders are a few of the many conditions that can trigger emotional numbness.
People may experience episodes of apathy with certain psychological conditions, such as major depression and schizophrenia. In addition, people who experience traumatic events may develop apathy syndrome (indifference and emotional detachment) as a way to protect themselves mentally and prevent further distress.
Emotional detachment is a maladaptive coping mechanism for trauma, especially in young children who have not developed coping mechanisms. Emotional detachments can also be due to psychological trauma in adulthood, like abuse, or traumatic experiences like war, automobile accidents etc.
“Muscle atrophy happens when your muscles aren't getting used as much, so they start to lose some strength and size,” says Emily Davis, PT, DPT, a physical therapist at Hinge Health. This can affect things like balance and confidence, and may make you feel less steady or strong during your usual routines.
Literature suggests that chronic stress triggers inflammation, elevated cortisol levels, and fibrosis, causing elevated proteolysis and diminished protein synthesis, eventually leading to skeletal muscle atrophy.
Overview. Multiple system atrophy, also called MSA, causes people to lose coordination and balance or become slow and stiff. It also causes changes in speech and loss of control of other bodily functions. MSA is a rare condition.
A condition in which the tissues lining the inside of the vagina (birth canal) become thin, dry, and inflamed. This is caused by a decrease in the amount of estrogen (a female hormone) made by the body. Symptoms of vaginal atrophy include vaginal dryness, itching, and burning, and pain during sexual intercourse.
Multiple system atrophy (MSA) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder characterized by a combination of symptoms that affect both the central nervous system (which controls how a person moves), and the autonomic nervous system, which controls involuntary functions such as blood pressure or digestion.
Causes of atrophy include mutations (which can destroy the gene to build up the organ), poor nourishment, poor circulation, loss of hormonal support, loss of nerve supply to the target organ, excessive amount of apoptosis of cells, and disuse or lack of exercise or disease intrinsic to the tissue itself.
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