I'm very curious about the psychophysiology of crying. Which brain regions and neurotransmitter systems show the most activity during crying? Have PET or other such brain scans been performed on crying subjects?
Is there any evidence which supports psychodynamic views of catharsis? Let me make some assumptions here. Assuming PET scans show high levels of activity in the Thalamic/Hippocampal/etc brain regions associated with learning and memory one might surmise that the crying response is somehow a required mechanism by which emotionally charged and/or traumatic memories are transferred to long-term storage...backed up if you will. One might further surmise that failure to "process" the traumatic memory would result in the residual "memory trace" remaining somewhere in one's neurological RAM (continuing the computer analogy) where it would effect a subconscious psychosomatic response manifesting as any of a variety of "neurotic" behavioral and affective patterns.
Moving along...have there been any brain imaging studies which have demonstrated a differential response to different *types* or crying (e.g. crying in response to being physically injured vs crying as a grief-response to the loss of a loved one)?
For the evolutionary biologists out there....I can understand the adaptive role that tearing plays as a protective response to introduction of foreign matter in or near the eye. What, however, is the adaptive value of crying in response to emotional trauma? Could it be a vestigial communicative response? Allowing nonverbal communicative feedback to other members of ones Primate-Pack ... or ... could it be a mechanism by which memory states which consume large amounts of neurosomatic resources can be "purged", thus freeing the resources which allow perception to focus on immediate survival-related events in ones environment? Sort of like deleting "junk" files from your hard drive and then defragmenting it...processes which amusingly also take a fair amount of time and make a fair amount of noise!
Continuing...does the neuroendocrine response vary with the nature of the crying trigger? It seems that tears are produced in response to certain physical or psychological trauma whereas greater trauma, such as the grieving response, results in increased expulsion of not only fluid from the tear ducts but also mucoid matter from the nasopharyngeal canal.
How are these endocrine responses innervated? What is the precise sequence that leads from awareness of grief, for example, to initiation of the psychosomatic crying response complete with the characteristic rapid contractions of trunk musculature, facial musculature patters, and production of tears and mucoid matter?
Have there been any brain imaging studies which have shown differences in brain activity/neurochemistry between two groups of people...one group which cries a great deal after a trauma...and another group which "holds it all in."
I've read that the crying response is fairly unique to humans. I'm extremely curious as to the evolutionary mechanisms by which this behavioral pattern could evolve in we domesticated primates and the function it serves.
I could go on and on (indeed I have!) but you see what I'm getting at. Thank you for enduring my "brain-dump" and please opine at will and direct me to any resources you are aware of that are relevant to this line of inquiry.
Thanks!
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