Everyone agrees: Neuroscience is cool. [See above for the cover of our forthcoming text, which everyone also thinks is cool.]
Neuroscience is also complex. Most of it goes completely over my head. My guess is that I’m not alone in having neuro-limitations in my understanding of all things neuroscience.
I do know enough to know when neuroscience is being oversimplified in ways that are misleading or problematically reductionistic. For example, as many of you know, I’m not a fan of the “amygdala hijack” or “fight or flight.” I’m also not a fan of polyvagal theory–which has gotten it’s share of comeuppance in recent weeks. (see: https://www.clinicalneuropsychiatry.org/download/why-the-polyvagal-theory-is-untenable-an-international-expert-evaluation-of-the-polyvagal-theory-and-commentary-upon-porges-s-w-2025-polyvagal-theory-current-status-clinical-applications-and/)
In our theories text, we try to straddle the “Wow, neuroscience is cool” enthusiasm along with holding a “Wow, that explanation of neuroscience seems oversimplistic” attitude. Below, is my biased personal reflection (over a 45 year period) which made the cut in the latest edition of our counseling and psychotherapy theories text. Enjoy!
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Historical Reflections
In 1980, I (John) began my career in mental health as a recreation therapist in a 22-bed psychiatric hospital. Many patients were actively experiencing severe depression, mania, auditory hallucinations, delusions, and aggressive behaviors.
An intimidating biological psychiatrist (Dr. M) roamed the unit. He would smile dismissively as I engaged patients in the “Newlyfriend Game” (like the old television-based Newlywed Game, only better), relaxation groups, bowling nights, and ice cream socials. Occasionally Dr. M cornered me, explaining how recreational programs had no influence on patients’ mental health. He waxed eloquent about brain chemistry. He acknowledged that the Thorazine and Haldol he prescribed had nasty side effects, but he claimed that eventually designer drugs that restored neurochemical balance and cured mental disorders would make everything else irrelevant.
The chemical imbalance theory of mental disorders dominated mental health etiology through the 1980s and 1990s. Etiological explanations focused on too much dopamine (causing schizophrenia) and not enough norepinephrine or serotonin (causing depression). No one knew what caused these so-called imbalances, but biogenetic factors were prime suspects. Although I kept silent with Dr. M, I held tight to my beliefs that social, psychological, and physical experiences could be therapeutic.
As I pursued graduate studies and accumulated post-graduate knowledge, I found evidence to support my beliefs about the two-way relationship between experiences and bio-physiological changes. One study showed that testosterone levels vary as a function of winning or losing tennis matches (Booth et al., 1989). If testosterone levels changed based on competitive tennis, what other ways might human experiences influence the brain? Another study showed that treadmill running increased serotonin availability in rats (Chaouloff, 1997). It seemed likely that acute physical exercise might also increase serotonin in human brains, possibly reducing depressive symptoms.
Then, along came two bombshells: epigenetics and neurogenesis. Epigenetics is an evolving term that refers to how behavioral experiences influence cellular activity, which, in turn, activates or deactivates genes, without altering underlying DNA (Ospelt, 2022). Environmental toxins, stress, smoking, and diet are experiences that can affect gene expression; these experiences may lead to physical changes and increased or decreased disease risk. One common implication involves how conditions of poverty predict adverse epigenetic changes—potentially increasing risk for negative physical and mental health outcomes (Assari & Zare, 2024).
Neurogenesis is the creation of new brain cells. It has been long known that during fetal development, cells are created and migrate to specific places in the brain and body where they engage in specific roles and functions. Cells that become rods and cones end up in the eyes, while other cells become bone, and still others end up in the cerebral cortex. In the 1980s and 1990s, everyone agreed that neurogenesis continued during infancy, but most neuroscientists believed that after early childhood neurogenesis stopped. In other words, as adults, we only experienced neuronal pruning (cell death).
In the late 1980s, neuroscientists began conducting research that shook long-held assumptions about neurogenesis. One research team (Jenkins et al., 1990) housed adult monkeys in cages where the monkeys had to use their middle finger to rotate a disc to get banana pellets. Even after a short time (1 week), brain autopsies showed that the monkeys had an enlarged region in their motor cortex. The conclusion: in adult monkeys, repeated physical behaviors stimulated neurogenesis in the motor cortex. This seemed like common sense. Not only do our brains shape our experiences, but our experiences shape the brain (literally).
As it turns out, neurogenesis slows with age but doesn’t stop. It continues throughout the lifespan. New learning stimulates cell birth and growth in the hippocampus (and other areas involving memory processing and storage). This “new brain research” left open the possibility that counseling and psychotherapy might stimulate neurochemical changes and cell birth in the human brain.
As brain research accelerates, implications and applications of neuroscience to counseling and psychotherapy have flourished (Satel & Lilienfeld, 2013). Practitioners have created new marketing terminology like “brain-based therapy,” “neuropsychotherapy,” “neurocounseling,” and “interpersonal neurobiology,” despite the lack of clear scientific evidence to support these terms. In some cases, the birthing of this new terminology has caused lamentation within the neuroscience, genetics, and academic communities (Bott et al., 2016; Horsthemke, 2022; Lilienfeld et al., 2015).
Appreciating Neuroscience and Epigenetic Complexities
Where does all this take us? As Dr. M would say, the brain and biogenetic predispositions are central to mood and behavior change. We now know that the reverse is also true: mood, behavior, and social interaction are central to brain development, gene expression, and change. The influences are bidirectional. More importantly, we need to acknowledge that relationships between and among brain structures, neurotransmitters, hormones, other chemicals, human behaviors, and gene expression are extremely complex and still largely unexplained. The whole brain is functioning, as well as regions, and inter- and intracellular processes, while doing all these activities both sequentially and simultaneously.
Many students in psychology, counseling, and social work have strong interests in neuroscience. We think that’s great news. Neuroscience illuminates our understanding of psychological, emotional, social, spiritual, and other processes—and neuroscience will only grow in helping us understand what’s happening in the brain. That said, when we hear students say, “I love neuroscience!” we also feel concerned about where they’re getting their neuroscience knowledge. Too often, we hear students’ ideas about specific structures (e.g., amygdala, hippocampus, prefrontal cortex) or specific neurotransmitters (e.g., serotonin, norepinephrine, dopamine). Talking about the role of brain structures and neurotransmitters runs the risk of reductionism. Just as clients are much more than diagnostic labels, their aggression is much more than an “amygdala hijack.” Neuroscience is exceedingly complex. Most of us will learn just enough neuroscience from workshops and classes to practice simplistic reductionism. To emphasize neuroscience complexity, we would like to share a summary of a recently published neuroscience article. Here’s our selection for today (there will be more tomorrow). This is from an abstract of an article titled, “Mindfulness meditation and network neuroscience: Review, synthesis, and future directions,” published in the journal, Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging:
In this review, we begin by defining network neuroscience and providing an overview of the common metrics that describe the topology of human structural and functional brain networks. Then, we present a detailed overview of a limited but growing body of literature that has leveraged network neuroscience metrics to demonstrate the impact of mindfulness meditation on modulating the fundamental structural and functional network properties of segregation, integration, and influence. Although preliminary, results across studies suggest that mindfulness meditation results in a shift in connector hubs, such as the anterior cingulate cortex, the thalamus, and the mid-insula. (Prakash et al., 2025, p. 350)
Before reading this excerpt, you may have thought that the neuroscience on how mindfulness meditation affects the brain was straightforward. After reading this excerpt, please take a moment and bow in respect to the complexity of neuroscience and to the large brains of neuroscience researchers. In your spare time, you may want to similarly immerse yourself in deeper readings on epigenetics (Assari & Zare, 2024; Horsthemke, 2022; Ospelt, 2022).
John Sommers-Flanagan 