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Old 01-13-2010, 09:53 PM   #1
Erick Mead
 
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Hormonal & Psychological Responses to Combat

<<Split from the "Dreaming MMA" thread>>

Quote:
Kevin Leavitt wrote: View Post
Quote:
Erick Mead wrote:
This is one reason why Medal of Honor winners really become physically different, both more capable of possible survival and of enduring almost unimaginable damage in accomplishing their objective before their deaths -- because they are neither living nor dying for themselves anymore -- and this actually makes their bodies more powerful and harder to destroy.
Happy New Year Erick! What is your source for this? I am very interested in this type of thing for sure! It is an area I am not familiar with and would like to know more about the differences between adrenal responses and oxytoicin.
Well, go through the Medal of Honor citations and search for "severely wounded" and see what these men did in that condition.

An example:
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MANNING, SIDNEY E.

Rank and organization: Corporal, U.S. Army Company G, 167th Infantry, 42d Division. Place and date: Near Breuvannes, France, 28 July 1918. Entering service at: Flomaton, Ala. Born: 17 July 1892, Butler County, Ala. G.O. No.: 44, W.D., 1919. Citation: When his platoon commander and platoon sergeant had both become casualties soon after the beginning of an assault on strongly fortified heights overlooking the Ourcq River, Cpl. Manning took command of his platoon, which was near the center of the attacking line. Though himself severely wounded he led forward the 35 men remaining in the platoon and finally succeeded in gaining a foothold on the enemy's position, during which time he had received more wounds and all but 7 of his men had fallen. Directing the consolidation of the position, he held off a large body of the enemy only 50 yards away by fire from his automatic rifle. He declined to take cover until his line had been entirely consolidated with the line of the platoon on the front when he dragged himself to shelter, suffering from 9 wounds in all parts of the body.
Already wounded, he took command and was shot nine times in the course of consolidating his line and still was mobile enough to regain cover under his own power. Incredibly courageous, certainly, but what was the source of such courage -- and such resilience and endurance ?

This is black-letter stuff in unit cohesion doctrine:
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FM 22-51 Sec. 3-10 wrote:
3-10. Unit Cohesion
a. Especially in small units, all soldiers come to know and appreciate their peers and leaders. They recognize how all members of the unit depend on one another. With this recognition comes a feeling of intimacy (personal bonding) and a strong sense of responsibility. This mutual trust, based on personal face-to-face interaction, is called "cohesion."
"Love" is a too-mushy word for the Army -- when sober anyway -- but that's what it is... I strongly suggest reading John Hillman's "A Terrible Love of War." Hillman was a direct and close student of Jung and explores this theme in terms of Jungian psychology. He lays out the beautiful and horrific ties between love and war. Bears a lot of re-reading.
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FM 22-51, Sec. 3-11 wrote:
3-11. Heroism
a. The ultimate positive combat stress behaviors are acts of heroism. The citations for winners of the Medal of Honor or other awards for valor in battle document almost unbelievable feats of courage, strength, and endurance. The hero has overcome the paralysis of fear, and in some cases, has also called forth muscle strength far beyond what he has ever used before. He may have persevered in spite of wounds which would normally be so painful as to be disabling. Some heroes willingly sacrifice their lives knowingly for the sake of their buddies.

b. Those who survive their own heroism often have a difficult time describing how it happened. A few may not even remember the events clearly (have amnesia). More often they remember selected details with remarkable clarity. They may say, "I don't know how I did it. I remember being pinned down and scared, but I saw what needed to be done, and something came over me. It was like it was happening to someone else" (or like I was watching myself in a movie" or like an out-of-my-body experience").
There is a great BBC production called Jekyll (yes, THAT Jekyll), which dramatically explores this deep connection between love and the dissociative state that might otherwise be seen as psychopathic behavior that allows the psyche to both perform and yet divorce itself from very calculated killing. A great thriller series but a serious psychological drama, too.

Quote:
FM 22-51, Sec. 3-11 wrote:
c. In psychiatry, these experiences would be called dissociative reactions. If they resulted in inappropriate behavior, they would be classified as dissociative disorders. Indeed, many such cases may go unrecorded except by sad letters from the soldier's commander to the family -- killed while performing his duties. However, when the behavior has been directed by sound military training (drill) and strong unit cohesion, the doer receives a well-deserved medal for heroism in order to encourage similar positive combat stress behavior in others. Posthumous medals also console the survivors and the heroes' families and reassure them that the memory of the hero will live on in the unit's tradition. Medals are awarded based on the results of a soldier's actions, not for the motives that prompted such actions or acts of bravery.
As to the physiological action of oxytocin -- please see these links to studies I have been gathering over the years:

Oxytocin allows damaged tissue to remain viable longer and decreases stress effect systemically.

Oxytocin causes contraction of myofascial tissues in a "smooth muscle-like" manner. On p. 53-54 you can see that mepyramine does also (a histamine or inflammation causing hormone), but NOT epinephrine (adrenaline), acetycholine (an muscle neurotransmitter) or adenosine ().

It has been discussed here before that the stabilizing effects of faciasl tissue are likely important. Here too oxytocin causes fascial contraction that is demonstrably effective:
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The resulting forces are strong enough to alter normal musculoskeletal behavior, such as mechanical joint stabilization or γ-motor regulation.
Alot of voluntary muscle power is wasted on joint stabilization when actuating against a load. If the fascia take even a small part of those induced joint shears, the muscles can easily increase their effective moment because the antagonist muscles are not having to act to balance the load in opposostion on the bone lever -- a third more, and maybe half again the normal mechanical advantage is easily conceivebale -- and maybe much more.

Gamma motor neurons are involved in spinal reflex cascades that involve the most fundamental motor functions of the body. Since induced contractions helps keep natural gait going at a reflexive level it is likely that myofascial contraction does this also.

(Ob. Aikido -- My theory is that modulating and exploiting that reflex action internally, and using the same system of the opponent against him are a significant component of what we describe as the action of aiki (FWIW).)

More interesting, in a conventional sense, induced contraction of mechanical tension in limb structure causes gamma motor neuron reflex responses to lose the normal neural "tone" inhibitions and thus they are allowed to become stronger and more responsive to a triggering gain. Myofascial contraction would have the same effect. Increased sensitivity to reflexive triggers with greater amplitude of action has obvious potential performance value in threat situations.

Inflammation is partly mechanically caused by some of this same tissue response to histimane release upon wounding, and helps to stay blood loss. With the addition of oxytocin -- which has a positive feedback (think of labor in childbirth) -- my thought is that this tissue response to oxytocin may allow systemic tamponade of wounds far greater and for far longer than with histaminic inflammation alone. That would forestall blood loss and with the lessening of the stress reactions noted above -- delay the onset of shock -- which is the immediate cause of most traumatic death.

The likely end result would be a leaking like a sieve and a shock collapse at the end when the oxytocin cascade subsides, and there are anecdotal reports of just this kind of post-trauma behavior in extraordinary performance events of this type -- the guy is clearly wounded but hardly bleeding as engagement ceases, but then collapses and bleeds out almost at once.

It also suggests a thought for an addition to the "golden hour" frontline medical kit.

Last edited by Erick Mead : 01-13-2010 at 10:04 PM.

Cordially,

Erick Mead
一隻狗可久里馬房但他也不是馬的.
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