Stephen Porges

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Stephen Porges
Steve Porges.jpg
Born1945
New Brunswick, New Jersey, United States
Nationality American
Alma mater Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan; US
Known for Polyvagal theory
Scientific career
Fields Behavioral neuroscience
Institutions Indiana University, University of North Carolina

Stephen W. Porges (born 1945) is an American psychologist and neuroscientist. He is the Professor of Psychiatry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. [1] Porges is also currently Director of the Kinsey Institute Traumatic Stress Research Consortium at Indiana University Bloomington, [2] which studies trauma. He was previously a professor at the University of Illinois, Chicago, where he was director of the Brain-Body Center at the College of Medicine, and at the University of Maryland.

Contents

He proposed the still-unproven polyvagal theory in 1994, which is not endorsed by current social neuroscience. [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8]

He is today a neuroscientist with interests in cranial nerve responses as they relates to both animals and humans.

Research focus

Polyvagal theory is a collection of unproven evolutionary, neuroscientific, and psychological constructs pertaining to the role of the vagus nerve in emotion regulation, social connection and fear response. It focuses on the autonomic antecedents of behavior, including an appreciation of the autonomic nervous system as a system, the identification of neural circuits involved in the regulation of autonomic states, and the interpretation of autonomic reactivity as adaptive within the context of the phylogeny of the vertebrate autonomic nervous system. [9] First of all, the polyvagal perspective emphasizes the importance of phylogenetic changes in the neural structures regulating the heart [10] and phylogenetic shifts providing insight into the adaptive function of both physiology and behavior. The theory emphasizes the phylogenetic emergence of two vagal systems: a potentially lethal ancient brain and cord circuits involved in defensive strategies of immobilization (e.g., fainting, freezing, fighting) including dissociative states. [11] [12] Polyvagal responses provided a new conceptualization of the autonomic nervous system that emphasize neurophysiological mechanisms and phylogenetic shifts in the neural regulation of the psychological responses from the cranial nerves to the spine, spinal cord and lower aspects of the mammalian brain.

He is a former president of the Society for Psychophysiological Research and has been president of the Federation of Behavioral, Psychological and Cognitive Sciences (now called the Federation of Associations in Behavioral & Brain Sciences), a consortium of societies representing approximately twenty-thousand biobehavioral scientists.

He was a recipient of a National Institute of Mental Health Research Scientist Development award. He has chaired the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, maternal and child health research committee and was a visiting scientist in the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Laboratory of Comparative Ethology.

Professional societies

Editorial duties

Selected works

Academic journals

Books

Related Research Articles

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References

  1. ↑ University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, accessed March 1, 2022
  2. ↑ Indiana University Bloomington, accessed March 1, 2022
  3. ↑ Todorov, Alexander; Fiske, Susan; Prentice, Deborah (2011). Social Neuroscience: Toward Understanding the Underpinnings of the Social Mind. Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0-19-972406-2.[ page needed ]
  4. ↑ Ward, Jamie (2016). The Student's Guide to Social Neuroscience. Psychology Press. ISBN   978-1-317-43918-9.[ page needed ]
  5. ↑ Schutt, Russell K.; Seidman, Larry J.; Keshavan, Matcheri S. (2015). Social Neuroscience: Brain, Mind, and Society. Harvard University Press. ISBN   978-0-674-72897-4.[ page needed ]Litfin, Karen T.; Berntson, Gary G. (2006). Social Neuroscience: People Thinking about Thinking People. MIT Press. ISBN   978-0-262-03335-0.[ page needed ]
  6. ↑ Baron-Cohen, Simon; Tager-Flusberg, Helen; Lombardo, Michael (2013). Understanding Other Minds: Perspectives from Developmental Social Neuroscience. OUP Oxford. ISBN   978-0-19-969297-2.[ page needed ]
  7. ↑ Cacioppo, Stephanie; Cacioppo, John T. (2020). Introduction to Social Neuroscience. Princeton University Press. ISBN   978-0-691-16727-5.[ page needed ]
  8. ↑ Decety, Jean; Cacioppo, John T. (2011). The Oxford Handbook of Social Neuroscience. Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0-19-534216-1.[ page needed ]
  9. ↑ Porges, S.W. (2003). The Polyvagal Theory: phylogenetic contributions to social behavior. Physiology and Behavior, 79, 503–513.
  10. ↑ Porges, S.W. (2007). The Polyvagal Perspective. Biological Psychology, 74, 116–143.
  11. ↑ Porges, Stephen W. (2011). The polyvagal theory Neurophysiological foundations of emotions, attachment, communication, and self-regulation. New York: W.W. Norton. p. 347. ISBN   978-0393707007.
  12. ↑ Corrigan, Frank E. M. (2014). Neurobiology and treatment of traumatic dissociation toward an embodied self. New York: Springer. p. 510. ISBN   978-0826106315.
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