365 Difficult Ways To Live

In the conference room, Fang Datuo pushed the MRI images and various material level data in front of Chu Yu without saying a word, turned on the computer, and some moving images needed to be projected on the screen.

Chu Yu carefully went through the test data similar to the medical report, and then scanned the brain image, and found that it was the same as the test results at Jinshui Hospital. According to this result, Xia Yihan is a genuinely healthy person. normal people.

If it takes too much time to read it slowly, Chu Yu directly asks Datuo to get rid of it: "If you find anything or have any doubts, tell me, tell the truth, I can't resist it!"

For Xia Yihan's illness, Chu Yu is mainly responsible for the psychological factors, while Fang Datuo, this time, mainly started from neurobiology to find out the cause of Xia Yihan, including genetic basis, neurotransmitters, hormone system, autonomic nervous system and The study of the functional structure of the brain.

He took the brain map over, flipped through a few, and put them in front of Chu Yu, "Start with the brain functional structure, her PFC (prefrontal cortex), OFC (orbital frontal cortex), VMPEC (ventromedial prefrontal cortex) ), DLPFC (dorsolateral prefrontal cortex), and ACC (anterior cingulate gyrus) were all developed normally, and there was no deficiency in cortical thickness."

The prefrontal cortex is closely related to self-control, impulsivity, and executive function, which affects emotional responses and moral decision-making, as well as the processing and evaluation of emotional stimuli in life. If the structure of the prefrontal cortex is abnormal, people will be impulsive and have executive dysfunction , a lack of responsibility, and a sense of remorse—these are all hallmarks of people with antisocial personality disorder.

Chu Yu stared at the image, and the normal brain map had been engraved into her brain. By comparing the two, she knew that everything was normal, with normal structure and sound development.

But she is not surprised. There are obvious differences between Xiaohuaihua and ordinary patients. For example, she is not impulsive, her thinking is meticulous, her work is impeccable, and she can recognize emotions and imitate them. This shows that at least her cerebral cortex is well developed and has no obvious dysfunction.

Pointing to the position of the amygdala in the picture, Fang Datuo continued: "Generally speaking, the amygdala of ASPD (antisocial personality disorder) is small in size and has local abnormalities, such as deformation of the basal, basolateral, and central nuclei of the amygdala. , but Xiaohuaihua does not have this problem, her amygdala is perfect in terms of volume and structure."

Looking at the diffusion tensor imaging, Chu Yu nodded: "The right uncinate bundle (the white matter bundle connecting the frontal lobe and amygdala) is also normal."

The amygdala is closely related to emotional processing and is involved in moral decision-making. If it goes wrong, patients will lack empathy and remorse.At the same time, the connection between the amygdala and other brain regions is also very important. The amygdala can generally be divided into the basolateral amygdala and the central medial amygdala.

The outside of the base is responsible for receiving information, which is related to the perception and memory of emotional information.

The central medial amygdala is the output nucleus, which transmits physiological and behavioral signals related to emotions to the brainstem, cerebellum, and hypothalamus.

If the prefrontal cortex over-controls the base lateral amygdala, it will cause patients to be unable to pay attention to, perceive and learn emotional information. If the cortex has insufficient control over the central medial amygdala, the amygdala will be overactive and send information to the brainstem, hypothalamus, etc. The autonomic nervous system outputs more negative emotions, and patients will be impulsive and attack others.

Regarding these two items, Fang Datuo explained: "The control of the amygdala by the PEC (prefrontal cortex) cannot yet draw a final conclusion, and it has to be combined with the later experimental results."

Chu Yu nodded: "Are you going to give Xiao Huaihua a certain amount of stimulation to check her brain activity under special circumstances?"

Fang Datuo nodded, "Yes, this point is also very important for the striatum. Although the picture shows that the size of Xiaohuaihua's striatum is the same as that of ordinary people, it also depends on the size of her left side when facing reward stimuli. activation of the striatum."

Chu Yu nodded, agreeing with his method.

The striatum, especially the nucleus accumbens in the ventral striatum, can affect people's reward preferences. For example, under the action of money stimulation and drugs, the release of dopamine in the nucleus accumbens will increase, which makes antisocial personality Disabled people get more stimulation and pleasure.

After flipping through the axial slices, Chu Yu propped his chin, "Tell me about the hippocampus."

"In terms of volume and structure, there is no abnormality in the hippocampus. I also compared Xiaohuaihua's hippocampus with mine. Hers is healthier than mine."

Chu Yu laughed, "This is not normal. You are a super-intelligent research talent. If her hippocampus is better developed than yours, isn't it that she has performed supernormally and is frantically probing on the verge of committing a crime?"

Fang Datuo was a little embarrassed by such a high-profile praise. He was always proud of his hippocampus, and he even drew it, hung it on the wall, and specially marked it to show off.

But only Chu Yu could understand. When Muyu and Song Qingyang passed by, they questioned their souls: "Is this the sausage painted by Datuo? What kind of sausage can be bent like this, with such good toughness!"

Fang Datuo tore off his hippocampus jade photos angrily, and felt the sadness of being considered too poor to change clothes after wearing luxury goods worth over ten thousand for a long time.

Chu Yu understood his sadness, because the hippocampus is the spokesperson of learning ability.

As an important part of the limbic system of the brain, the hippocampus has memory and learning functions. If the hippocampus is asymmetrical, psychopathic behavior may occur. Psychopathy is an extreme antisocial personality disorder with obvious aggressive tendencies.

In addition, the hippocampus is also an important memory functional area. In the human brain, the parts related to memory are the temporal lobe, hippocampus and diencephalon.The temporal lobe belongs to the neocortex of the brain, and the temporal lobe memory is located in the shallow layer of the memory hierarchy, which is easier to forget.

The hippocampus belongs to the old cortex of the brain, and its memory is located in the deep layer of the memory hierarchy, and the memory is relatively firm; the diencephalon belongs to the brainstem, and the diencephalon memory is a deeper memory.

The hippocampus is the central part of memory.

When the brain is very interested in a certain type of information, or the information is repeated repeatedly, the brain thinks that the information is extraordinary, and it will not only store it in the temporal lobe, but also transmit it to the hippocampus through the nervous system.

It is difficult for people to control or change the deep memory circuits in the hippocampus through willpower.

The memory content in the hippocampus affects people unconsciously.If people can remember things at the age of five or six, it is because they have entered the deep memory of the hippocampus.

Chu Yu remembered Xia Yihan's dream. It was probably a real scene. It stimulated Xia Yihan too much, so he dreamed it repeatedly, but because of repeated dreams, the memory was deeper, and it was preserved in the deep hippocampus. Form, while affecting her behaviour.

She is now carving locust trees everywhere because of the influence of that dream. This dream is reflected in the psychological and spiritual level, which is to heal Xia Yihan's knot, and reflected in the real criminal investigation level, it is the crux of the unsolved case. A dream connects the two worlds of psychology and reality. The ends are connected and interlocked, as long as one end is opened, the other end can also be solved.

But Chu Yu has worked so hard for so long, but he still feels ignorant. He moved forward in the thick fog, groping forward with both hands, trying to find the iconic landmarks, but found that he only reached the periphery of the mystery, and did not officially step into it.

After talking about the structure of the brain, Fang Datuo turned to the signal transduction substance, "The next step is the level of neurotransmitters and hormones. Through PET (Positron Emission Tomography) and fMRI (Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging), we can see the Her dopamine system is normal, and I found that the concentration of serotonin in the orbitofrontal cortex on both sides of her is the same as that of normal people. However, based on later experiments, using the amount of dopamine secretion as an indicator, let’s see how she responds to stimuli. dopamine system activity levels."

Dopamine and serotonin are neurotransmitters, the former plays an important role in the brain reward process, the release of dopamine will make people happy.On the other hand, aggression can also give people pleasure. When the dopamine system is overactive, or not active enough, it can trigger aggressive behavior.

Serotonin is related to emotion and behavior control. Xia Yihan's serotonin concentration is normal, which shows that she can better control her emotions and behaviors than those with antisocial personality disorder.

But this did not make Chu Yu feel relieved, because normal serotonin could only show that people are not easy to initiate impulsive attacks, and it has no obvious significance for premeditated attacks.And Xia Yihan's "Sophia japonica great cause" is a model of premeditated crime!

While listening to Fang Datuo, Chu Yu looked at various indicators, quickly scanned, and reached the hormone column, "The concentrations of testosterone and cortisol are normal, but there is no daily change rhythm, nor the change of cortisol concentration under stressful situations. 【1】"

"Yes, this requires a full-day follow-up of Sophora japonica in the future to detect the levels of various substances in it."

Putting down the data sheet in his hand, Chu Yu asked, "So, is there anything unusual about this inspection?"

Fang Datuo shrugged: "No, the previous brain function structure, neurotransmitters, and hormone levels. I also checked her autonomic nervous system, and her resting heart rate is not lower than ordinary people. 【2】"

Although he expected this result, after hearing it with his own ears, Chu Yu still felt mixed feelings, and the test result was not abnormal, which is a good thing on the one hand, indicating that Xia Yihan has all normal functions and there is no organic problem, but On the other hand, if the cause cannot be found, the right medicine cannot be prescribed, and targeted biological assistance cannot be carried out.

Although Chu Yu's current psychological intervention methods have been somewhat effective, making Xia Yihan believe in her and willing to receive treatment, it is far from enough. At least from the point of view of Xia Yihan's emotional dysfunction, it must be from the deeper causes and causes. mechanism to assist psychotherapy.

The following content no longer requires a projector, Fang Datuo put down the infrared pen, and turned to Chu Yu, "Boss, I can check and analyze these neurobiological indicators, but the early environment, for ASPD (antisocial personality disorder) Formation is also closely related, I don't know much about Xiaohuaihua's childhood experience, can you contribute a little bit?"

When Chu Yu heard this, she was heartened. The information she collected from Xia Yihan for so many days finally came into use, "Xiao Huaihua's childhood was not good, and her mother seems to be suffering from depression. Or schizotypal personality disorder. On the one hand, it shows that Xiaohuaihua has genetic genes and is susceptible to mental illness [3]. Loss of security, emotional damage, and indifference to external stimuli."

Fang Datuo nodded: "Does her mother have the habit of smoking and drinking?"

Chu Yu shook his head. She asked Xia Yihan about this, but was denied.Apart from not caring about people, Huang Nan has no bad habits, and he doesn't even scold Mu Shangqing and Xia Yihan, treating them as air.

"Has she been abused as a child, or has she been severely hit?"

Chu Yu shook his head first, and then fell into deep thought: "As far as I know, no. But not necessarily, sometimes for too painful memories, especially those that happened in childhood, the human brain will choose to forget and protect itself If you don’t think about it, you won’t hurt yourself again, but sometimes, it will show up in the form of a dream, such as the dream of Xiaohuaihua, I suspect that it is a serious trauma!”

Fang Datuo nodded thoughtfully, "Have you tried to unravel her dreams before?"

Chu Yu glanced at him: "I've been trying. I just came here for the first time, and directly forcefully hypnotized her. As a result, she overreacted and almost twisted my hand off."

Fang Datuo smiled gloatingly. Although he couldn't analyze Xia Yihan's cause at the moment, it didn't prevent him from laughing at Zhu Hei, "Ahahaha, with the fighting power of little Sophora japonica, you actually dare to be tough." ...Ahahahaha!"

Chu Yu narrowed his eyes and stared at him motionlessly, as if needles were about to fly out of his eyes, and the needles were still poisoned.

Fang Datuo laughed for a while, and was pierced by Chu Yu's eyes a few times. He behaved, and the laughter stopped abruptly. He tidied up the materials on the table.

"Chuchu, you want Xiaohuaihua to meet us, right? It's okay, take her down. According to the current analysis results, her brain functions are normal, and she has no tendency to impulsive attacks. She can be controlled well." If you act on your own, and with you here, we should not be in danger."

Chu Yu nodded, serious: "Well, if the follow-up experimental research shows that her data is normal, I will take her into surgery - such a big 'clue library' is in front of us, we can't waste it!"