Gene expression, neurogensis, and healing: Psychosocial genomics of therapeutic hypnosis

American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis,  Jan 2003  by Rossi, Ernest L

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The historical lineage of therapeutic hypnosis in James Braid's "psychophysiology", Pierre Janet's "physiological modification", and Milton Erickson's "neuro-psycho-physiology" is extended to include current neuroscience research on activity-dependent gene expression, neurogenesis, and stem cells in memory, learning, behavior change, and healing. Three conditions that optimize gene expression and neurogenesis-novelty, environmental enrichment, and exercise-could integrate fundamentals of the theory, research, and practice of therapeutic hypnosis. Continuing research on immediate-early, activity-dependent, behavior state-related, and clock gene expression could enhance our understanding of how relaxation, sleep, dreaming, consciousness, arousal, stress and trauma are modulated by therapeutic hypnosis. It is speculated that therapeutic and posthypnotic suggestion could be focused more precisely with the time parameters of gene expression and neurogenesis that range from minutes and hours for synthesizing new synapses to weeks and months for the generation and maturation of new, functioning neurons in the adult brain.

Keywords: Activity-dependent, behavior state-related, clock gene expression, gene expression, neurogenesis, hypnosis, healing, psychosocial genomics, stress

The Historical Continuum of Therapeutic Hypnosis and Neuroscience

Research in current neuroscience indicates, contrary to 100 years of dogma, that the human brain is capable of generating new brain cells throughout the life cycle (Gross, 2000). Novelty, environmental enrichment, and exercise can activate gene expression leading to the differentiation of new neurons from neural stem cells in the adult mammalian brain during salient life experiences that are associated with the generation and reconstruction of memory, learning, and behavior (Eriksson et al., 1998; Gage, 2000a, 2000b; Van Praag et al., 2002). Kempermann and Gage (1999) have summarized the implications of such neuroscience research:

Contrary to dogma, the human brain does produce new brain cells in adulthood... With continued diligence, scientists may eventually be able to trace the molecular cascades that lead from a specific stimulus, be it an environmental cue, or some internal event, to particular alterations in genetic activity and, in turn, to rises or falls in neurogenesis.

Then they will have much more of the information needed to induce neuronal regeneration at will. Such a therapeutic approach could involve administration of key regulatory molecules or other pharmacological agents, delivery of gene therapy to supply helpful molecules, transplantation of stem cells, modulations of environmental or cognitive stimuli, alterations in physical activity, or some combination of these factors (p. 53, italics added).

With the words "modulations of environmental or cognitive stimuli" Kempermann and Gage are intuiting a new neuroscience update of what many would regard as the historical goal of therapeutic hypnosis. James Braid (1855/1970), for example, described the "Physiology of Fascination", an early concept of therapeutic hypnosis, in this way:

With the view of simplifying the study of reciprocal actions and reactions of mind and matter upon each other... the [hypnotic] condition arose from influences existing within the patient's own body, viz., the influence of concentrated attention, or dominant ideas, in modifying physical action, and these dynamic changes re-acting on the mind of the subject. I adopted the term "hypnotism" or nervous sleep for this process... And finally as a generic term, comprising the whole of these phenomena which result from the reciprocal actions of mind and matter upon each other, I think no term more appropriate than "psychophysiology" (pp. 369-372).

Because of the limitations of psychophysiological techniques of Braid's time, however, his concept of therapeutic hypnosis remained a theoretical hope rather than a verifiable method to guide clinical practice. If we are willing to intuit an association between what Braid called "The Physiology of Fascination" and what now is called Novelty by current neuroscientists, however, we can recognize a deep psychobiological lineage between the historical foundations of hypnosis (Tinterow, 1970) and current neuroscience research on gene expression and neurogenesis in memory, learning, and healing.

This psychobiological lineage was reviewed and expanded by Pierre Janet's (1919/1925) historical and clinical study of psychological healing:

The most important phenomena that have been adduced to substantiate the alleged power of hypnotic suggestion are the physiological modifications which suggestion is said to have caused. Normally the power we can exercise over our visceral organs and our physiological functions is greatly restricted, and is usually indirect. Hypnotic suggestion, we are told, can influence these organs markedly and directly. A precise verification of these phenomena, and the discovery of the exact mechanisms of their causation, would do a great deal to demonstrate the power of suggestion (Pp. 308-309, italics added).