Emotions and Vision: A Deep Dive

The Berne Podcast with Dr. Sam Berne

Keywords

visual system, nervous system, neuroplasticity, vision therapy, stress and vision, eye health, cranial nerves, emotional vision, visual processing, brain function

Summary:

In this episode, Dr. Sam Berne explores the intricate relationship between the visual system and the nervous system. He discusses how stress impacts vision, the role of neuroplasticity in vision rehabilitation, and the importance of understanding the visual pathway and processing in the brain. The conversation highlights the significance of the vagus nerve, emotional states, and various therapies that can enhance visual health and overall well-being.

Takeaways:

• The nervous system is crucial for resilience against stress.
• Vision is not just about the eyes; it’s a brain-body connection.
• The visual pathway includes the retina, optic nerve, and brain regions.
• Stress can lead to visual issues like myopia and eye strain.
• The vagus nerve plays a key role in relaxation and vision.
• Neuroplasticity allows for improvement in visual processing.
• Visual therapy can help rewire the brain for better vision.
• Emotions significantly influence our visual perception.
• Craniosacral therapy can aid in visual and nervous system balance.
• Understanding the connection between stress and vision is vital.

Sound Bites
• “The nervous system reflects our ability to become resilient.”
• “The eyes are a sensory organ connected to the brain.”
• “Visual processing occurs in the occipital lobe of the brain.”
Chapters
00:00Understanding the Visual System and Nervous System Connection
02:59The Visual Pathway and Brain Processing
05:57The Role of the Nervous System in Vision
08:52Neuroplasticity and Vision Rehabilitation
11:03Stress, Vision, and Neurological Disorders

Hey everybody. Welcome to the Berne podcast. It’s great to be in today. And today I want to talk about understanding your visual system as it relates to the nervous system. This is one of the topics we talk about in our practitioner training, but I also talked to many of my patients about it because they’re so stressed out and our nervous system reflects our ability.

to become resilient with stress. So there is a very strong relationship between the nervous system and our vision. In fact, it is so deeply interconnected because it’s not just about our eyes, but it’s about the process between our eyes, our brain and our body. And since the eyes are a sensory organ.

We can see the nerves that are connecting into the eyes like our pupil responses as one example. Another example is eye movements. In fact, there are three cranial nerves that innervate the eye muscles cranial nerve 3 cranial nerve 4 and cranial nerve 6. So if we’ve got visual coordination problems strabismus amblyopia, sometimes it’s related to an imbalance in the nerves as it relates to the eyes.

So the first thing I want to bring up in our visual system is something called our visual pathway. And so the eyes convert light when the light strikes the retina. These electrical signals are stimulating the photoreceptors the rods and codes in the retina and sending these signals. They’re transmitting them basically through I call the fiber optic pathway the optic nerve and this visual pathway includes the retina.

which is the photoreceptors the optic nerve, which is that fiber optic pathway that connects the retina to the brain something called the optic chiasm the point where the nerves cross in the brain and then this visual information we then reaches the hemispheres of the brain. have the right brain and the left brain. So we talk about the

visual information processing and another part of the brain. We talk about is something called the lateral geniculate nucleus, which is located in the thalamus and this is related to our visual information to the visual cortex the back part of the brain. This is the occipital lobe of the brain where the majority of our visual processing occurs. This is where we get things like depth perception color processing motion detection.

And so we’ve had say cervical spine compression or if that traumatic brain injury many times the visual cortex that occipital part of the lobe of the brain is not able to handle the visual information processing. This is why we get issues with brain fog visual memory visual confusion. If the visual cortex is not capturing the vision that were

taking in through the eyes. The output is going to be impeded. So we have input we have processing in the brain and then we have output. Now the nervous system plays a critical role in interpreting these signals and they turn them into coherent visual perception our ability to see motion our spatial awareness our spatial IQ and decision-making our shape recognition all of these things.

are in influenced by our nervous system. So when we talk about our autonomic nervous system, we’re talking about some of the involuntary physiological processes. So I need to bring in the gatekeeper of light into the eyes, which is our pupil. So we have the dilation where our pupil gets larger and we have contraction where our pupil gets smaller. So when we’re in a fight-or-flight situation, I call it the fight-flight freeze.

Our sympathetic sympathetic nervous system, is our active state is overworking and we start to see that the pupil remains dilated even when we’re in bright light when it should constrict. And so this is saying that the adrenals are overworking the thyroid may be overworking our depth perception on our peripheral vision is going to be tunneled and our sympathetic nervous system is overworking. This is most of us when we’re under stress.

Now the parasympathetic nervous system causes the pupil to constrict or something we call meiosis. So in bright light, normally it should constrict. So when we talk about the dilation and the constriction, another aspect that we need to bring in is something called accommodation. And this is the ciliary muscles in the lens of the eye, which change the curvature of the eye. So when we have an imbalance

In our sympathetic parasympathetic nervous system. One of the issues that it affects is our accommodation our ciliary muscles and this is one of the reasons why we develop nearsightedness or myopia. It’s also another reason why we might be developing presbyopia. That’s at age 40 you need magnification. All right. Now I have to talk about something which is related to vision and the vagus nerve because the the vagus nerve

Is the major component of our parasympathetic nervous system and it’s related to our relaxation our stress levels our ability to handle trauma and stress. And so when our Vegas nerve is out of balance, we’re going to get things like light sensitivity blurred vision increased eye strain even things like dry eyes. That’s why in many of my techniques my somatic techniques.

We are targeting relaxation techniques that engage the nervous system, specifically the vagus nerve my end palm hum exercise, for example, some of the other somatic movement exercises that we do to help calm down the vagus nerve so that we can come back into a self-regulating balance. And then I want to talk about our visual perceptions in a higher brain function. So our visual cortex.

is related to our initial stages of visual processing, but there are also other parts of the brain that are involved in visual processing. Number one, our parietal lobe. This integrates visual information on a spatial level, our depth perception, our peripheral vision. That’s the parietal lobe. Our temporal lobe processes details, object recognition, facial recognition, enabling us to identify

people places and things and then the prefrontal cortex. This is the higher order cognitive processing. Sometimes it’s called the executive function decision-making a lot of the kids that I work with. They’re unable to get into the prefrontal cortex because there’s an imbalance in their visual processing. And then I want to talk about vision and emotions. We talk about the limbic brain.

The limbic brain which regulates our emotions is highly connected to our vision. That’s why myopia that’s our mate. The major emotion is fear. It’s our kidney connection hyperopia. That’s farsightedness. That’s our anger emotion liver. So the amygdala plays a role in processing the emotional significance of what we see and this relates to our eye contact our facial expressions.

our threats. The hippocampus part of the brain is involved in our memory and our recall experiences. So emotional states have a very strong effect on our eyesight and our vision and our decision-making. All right. The last thing I want to talk about and I talk about this a lot is neuroplasticity and vision. I doctors do not like to talk about neuroplasticity and vision, but

The neuroscientists have recognized that the nervous system, specifically the brain has an incredible capacity for rewiring itself. And when you rewire you refire the axons and the neurons so you can improve not only your vision, but your problem solving your processing of information and many other things. So the physical vision therapy is really a great way

As I call it neuroplasticity training where you’re improving your retraining the brain and the eyes and the body to work more effectively. So conditions like amblyopia lazy eye strabismus crossed or uncrossed eyes where there’s part of the brain that’s suppressing there’s certain visual therapy exercises that can actually create new pathways in the brain and the eyes and restore binocular vision and depth perception.

Okay, before I leave, I want to talk about the neurological disorders. We’re seeing more and more of these like multiple sclerosis Parkinson’s disease people with strokes. This these these conditions create things like blurred vision double vision visual field loss and even complete blindness. Remember damage to the optic nerve creates a problem in our visual field. So if you’ve got conditions like multiple sclerosis.

or papillodema or optic neuritis. This disrupts the nervous system’s ability to process visual information and bring it back to the brain.

Okay, there’s one more bonus. I’m going to talk about and this has to do with stress and vision. I’m going to talk about one of my mentors. Dr. Elliott forest who is a professor of optometry at SUNY. He wrote a book many years ago called stress and vision and he talked about how the sympathetic nervous system if it was overworking it created a dilation in the pupils more myopia blurred vision.

eye strain, headaches, difficulty with visual processing and overall visual performance. So our stress affects our eyes. There’s no question about it. And this relationship between our nervous system and our vision is intricate and both systems work off each other. They kind of work in concert and the brain not only processes what we see, but it also controls the muscles to direct the eyes and the focus in certain

positions. That’s why if our eyes are misaligned, we either get double vision or one of the eyes shuts off. So things like craniosacral therapy, light therapy, vision therapy, some of my somatic practices can help rebalance the nervous system and give you better vision. So if you’ve got questions, feel free to email me appointments at dr. Sam burn.com.

That’s our show for today. I want to thank you so much for tuning in until next time. Take care.