Porges Stephen W
Traumatic Stress Research Consortium, Kinsey Institute, Indiana University.
Department of Psychiatry, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Clin Neuropsychiatry. 2020 Apr;17(2):135-138. doi: 10.36131/CN20200220.
The spread of the SARSCov2 virus presents an unprecedented event that rapidly introduced widespread life threat, economic de-stabilization, and social isolation. The human nervous system is tuned to detect safety and danger, integrating body and brain responses via the autonomic nervous system. Polyvagal Theory provides a perspective to understand the impact of the pandemic on mental and physical health. This perspective highlights the important role of the state of the autonomic nervous system in exacerbating or dampening threat reactions to the pandemic. In addition, the theory alerts us to the impact of clinical history (e.g., trauma) on autonomic regulation as an important compounding risk factor lowering the threshold to behaviorally and physiologically destabilize in response to the pandemic. The theory provides a strategy to dampen the adverse reactions to threat (e.g., acute stress disorders) through portals of social engagement that evolved to downregulate defenses to promote calmness and connectedness.
严重急性呼吸综合征冠状病毒2（SARS-CoV-2）病毒的传播是一场前所未有的事件，它迅速带来了广泛的生命威胁、经济不稳定和社会隔离。人类神经系统能够感知安全与危险，通过自主神经系统整合身体和大脑的反应。迷走神经理论为理解这一疫情对身心健康的影响提供了一个视角。这一视角强调了自主神经系统状态在加剧或减轻对疫情的威胁反应方面的重要作用。此外，该理论提醒我们，临床病史（如创伤）对自主神经调节的影响是一个重要的复合风险因素，会降低因疫情而导致行为和生理不稳定的阈值。该理论提供了一种策略，通过社会参与的途径来减轻对威胁的不良反应（如急性应激障碍），这些途径是为了下调防御机制以促进平静和联系而进化出来的。
