The Ukhtomsky dominant principle in nerve centers. Dominant as a working principle of nerve centers The principle of dominant

4. Synapses of the autonomic nervous system, their types, localization, mechanism of excitation, basic mechanisms for regulating the activity of synapses.

Ergotropic syndrome, which determines the body’s readiness for action with a corresponding intensification of catabolic processes and an increase in muscle tone. An increase in sympathetic-adrenal activity can be expressed, in particular, in an increase in blood pressure, frequency and strength of heart contractions (an increase in stroke and minute volume). Ergotropic syndrome occurs with the functional predominance of the cerebral system, which includes, along with the posterior parts of the hypothalamus, the activating system of the midbrain, the intralaminar nuclei of the thalamus, and the amygdala complex.

Trophotropic syndrome is characterized by a decrease in the level of wakefulness, activation of the parasympathetic nervous system with corresponding metabolic shifts, and a decrease in muscle tone. At the same time, a drop in blood pressure and a decrease in heart rate are noted. Secondary sympathetic reactions (eg, increased heart rate, pupil dilation) may be observed.

Ticket No. 7

1. Efferent function of the central neuron. Place of formation of spreading excitation, types of impulse activity of neurons.

Efferent function consists of: a) the formation of spreading excitation (AP) in the area of ​​the axon hillock (AP generation zone), or the initial segment of the axon, which has high excitability (the lowest threshold; here the density of sodium channels is highest), based on local excitation, subject to reaching a critical level of depolarization and b) in conducting AP along the axon to other neurons or effector cells.

2. The principle of dominance in the activities of the central nervous system. Properties of the dominant focus. The importance of the dominant for the integrative activity of the organism.

The principle of dominance formulated by A. A. Ukhtomsky. In 1904, at one of the lectures of his teacher N. E. Vvedensky, he was supposed to, by irritating the centers of the dog’s brain, cause the movement of the paw. However, instead of a motor reaction, a response to irritation of the motor centers

there was an act of defecation. This fact prompted A. A. Ukhtomsky to carry out a special experimental analysis. It turned out that cats can develop inhibition of the motor reaction when the motor centers are irritated during the swallowing reflex. In frogs, one could see the suppression of the protective “acid” reaction during the “hug” reflex, the latter with

lowering the paw into the acid became even more pronounced. According to A. A. Ukhtomsky’s definition, a dominant is a temporarily dominant reflex system that directs the work of nerve centers. Another, more figurative and brief definition of dominant

A. A. Ukhtomsky - “reflex attention”. The reason for the formation of a dominant may be the action of external or internal stimuli of high biological significance. Certain dominants, for example, sexual, are formed against the background of humoral changes: an increase in the concentration of biologically active substances (hormones, etc.).

Properties of the dominant focus: increased excitability, high ability to sum up excitation, the ability to maintain one’s arousal through stimuli addressed to other (non-dominant) centers; inhibitory influence on other centers; stability of the excitation process and its inertia. The pathological inertia of certain dominants underlies the development of some manifestations of the disease. However, under normal conditions of existence, the activity of the central nervous system is very dynamic and changeable; the central nervous system has the ability to rearrange dominant relationships in accordance with the changing needs of the body.

The reasons for the cessation of dominant excitation of nerve centers may be the achievement of a result, extreme inhibition, the emergence of a new dominant (associated with more important activities); “head-on” inhibition, i.e., a person’s volitional influence on the dominant system of his reflexes.

And we will talk about one of the main mechanisms of practice - the principle of Dominance. It is thanks to this principle that practice exists and it is precisely because of this principle that the chances of each of us in practice are negligible. Indeed, our case is truly hopeless—at first it is even difficult to imagine how hopeless it is. It is precisely because of the Dominant principle that our personality is so “cemented” that it is virtually impossible to do anything with it, to get out of the shackles of conditioning... But, nevertheless, we believe in complete success, because it is the Dominant principle that gives us the opportunity to hope for the fact that using the knowledge of this principle, we will be able to build a practice in such a way that we will go beyond the limits of personal conditioning and come to the comprehension of the Truth...

The Dominant principle causes distortions in our perception; this is what prevents us from understanding each other; this is what prevents you from hearing me and fully understanding what I say; this is what causes our attention to be distracted at the most crucial moments; this is what completely undermines all our efforts on the eve of the decisive effort; this is what causes temptations and enticements to leave the Path; these are all manifestations of the “malicious devil”... Our perception, working according to the principle of the Dominant, does not allow us to perceive even an insignificant part of the world and ourselves... At the moment when information that is very important for you comes, you do not hear it, do not see it, miss it, forget it - this the work of the Dominant principle...

The Dominant principle is what allows you to accurately build your practice; this is what allows you to choose the right dosage; this is what makes it possible to keep attention in the desired range; this is what we can hope for to make perception whole; this is what allows you to go beyond the manifestations of dominants into the range of pure perception and experience your true nature. Only thanks to the Dominant principle we can perform any action. Without this, we could neither raise our hand, nor move from our place, nor say a word... Without forming a dominant, we cannot do anything. The whole world has manifested itself as a dominant, and exists according to the principle of the Dominant.

Naturally, the principle itself exists outside of people’s awareness of it. It was known by different names and has been used in practice since ancient times. For science and for modern language, the principle of Dominance was discovered at the beginning of the twentieth century by the physiologist Academician Ukhtomsky. By the way, in addition to the fact that this man was an outstanding scientist, throughout his life he set an example of a true Ascetic. And I strongly recommend that you read his works and, above all, “The Doctrine of the Dominant.” These are much more instructive and practical works than the various near-esoteric and quasi-esoteric books and brochures that are found in abundance on trays and in stores. "Teaching about Dominant" Ukhtomsky is a rich source of invaluable practical knowledge. There it is given a very deep explanation of how the human body works, perception. Although Ukhtomsky wrote about physiology, The Dominant principle describes the operation of any system.

Ukhtomsky’s research began like this: he conducted experiments with frogs and noticed several interesting phenomena. The frog was suspended in the device and its leg was burned with an electrode. Naturally, the reflex was triggered and the frog withdrew its paw. The phenomenon is well known. But, either by accident or something else, Ukhtomsky performed the following experiment: first, an intense swallowing reflex was induced in the frog - it began to swallow energetically, and at that very time its leg was burned with an electrode (but not with a strong current). As a result, the result was amazing - instead of withdrawing its paw, the frog began to swallow even more intensely. What does this mean? At that time when in organism formed some kind the predominant focus of excitation, that is, the entire body is absorbed somehow very intensive process, any other signals (unless they were not extremely strong) reinforce this process, sum up in the prevailing source of excitement.

We can constantly observe countless examples of this principle at work at all levels of our existence. Take a simple but clear everyday situation: you have a toothache and you are completely absorbed in this pain. No matter what happens, everything only aggravates your pain: the lights come on or go out, a car drives by, the phone rings, someone asks you something... All your thoughts, emotions, intentions and dreams are only about a bad tooth and, even if for some reason they deviate to the side, then soon turn back into the same direction. The signals are summed up and enhance the dominant focus of excitation.

There are three properties of our perception that clearly reflect how the Dominant principle works. This is distortion, generalization and omission of information. What is misrepresentation? Suppose, since childhood, your parents repeated to you a thousand times: “You are a fool!”, Well, or some other characteristic, no matter positive or negative. And you start acting as if you really are a fool (or someone else). The information that you perceive will be distorted, refracted through the dominant that has developed in your psyche, thanks to long-term cultivation, corresponding to the belief “I am a fool.” Someone looked at me somehow - it’s because I’m a fool! They didn’t look at me at all - because I’m a fool! They answered me this way and that way - because I’m a fool! And so on. Everything adds up and will strengthen your belief, not because people really looked at you or didn’t look or didn’t answer or didn’t answer - they could have their own, completely different reasons for this, but because you have a dominant belief about yourself. Each of us carries within us many such foci that are interconnected with each other by one large dominant - our personality, and which refract and distort information in every possible way at all levels of perception - from the physical body to the system of values. Touch such a hearth, even indirectly, and it begins to itch and attract everything that happens. The same rake that we constantly step on, even if the initial situations are different...

The entire personality is a collection of individual foci, individual dominants, manifested in certain situations. Individual foci may “doze,” but as soon as some signal passes nearby, stronger than a certain level, the dominant immediately starts up and begins to pull the blanket of perception over itself... Distortions of information occur at every step. We are forced to treat any information selectively. We cannot perceive everything at once, simultaneously and equally. When we read a book, watch a movie, listen to an interlocutor, and in other functions, we choose some places that most excite us, closest to our own experiences and picture of the world, and we either filter out or distort everything else, fitting it into our already established models , stereotypes, beliefs...

Information omission is when information simply passes by. Blinders of perception. A narrow corridor. Often we omit information that could be very useful for development, for awareness. This is called “close your eyes” and “plug your ears.” It also eliminates what may contradict the picture of the world, which may be painful for the individual. Those signals that are extraneous for the dominant focus of excitation or, as they also say, nonspecific... A blind spot, although, quite the opposite, what we can perceive, what resonates with the dominant personality, is a tiny speck in the ocean of life.

I once had a case that clearly illustrated what omission is and how one can live and not perceive O most of my life, b O most of the information about the world. This happened during one psychotherapeutic work. Although I read a lot and knew about such phenomena, when it happened before my eyes, I experienced a shock, because for the first time I saw how a person can not perceive what, as they say, is right in front of his nose. And it was like this. About three years ago I consulted at a large hospital. He worked mainly with drug addicts. One of my patients was a young guy, let's call him Sasha. We had already finished working with him - things were moving toward discharge. Sasha had not yet become heavily addicted to the drug and his business was progressing quite well. At least he and I managed to find other important needs in his life and focus attention on them. In general, drug addiction is almost incurable, but Sasha showed hope and he had chances for a different way of life. Sasha was very hypnotizable and was excellent at going into trance, which I decided to take advantage of in the last session. So, the last session - I, Sasha and my assistant Oksana are in the office. I put Sasha into a trance and said: “When you open your eyes, you will see that there are only three of us in the office - me, you and Oksana.” And then I asked Oksana to bring two other patients into the office. These were recently admitted drug addicts. Sasha knew them, since they were in neighboring rooms. But Sasha immediately after the session went to be discharged - he was no longer a drug addict (he and I formed the belief that he was already a full-fledged, healthy person with new interests and values), and in his perception those two were drug addicts. I asked them to sit directly opposite Sasha and ask him various questions, touch him, and so on. That's what they did when I told Sasha to open his eyes. Sasha did not react in any way to their questions and touches, as if they did not exist at all. Then I asked him: “Who’s in the office now?” “Like who?” Sasha shrugged, “Me, you and Oksana.” “Maybe there’s someone else?” I kept asking. “What, I don’t see or what?” - answered Sasha, looking straight at those two, or rather, through them. The guys were stunned by such a surprise and fell into a trance, which I immediately took advantage of and asked them to dive deeper and deeper, and then began to tell them that they had just seen how it was possible not to see the obvious. Then I told a series of metaphors about how the world is immeasurably richer than a person perceives it, especially those involved in drug addiction, and how you can expand your interests, needs and motives, starting to see what was not noticeable before. By this time I had already raised Sasha and escorted him out of the office, and finally brought him out of his trance. For him, this lesson with the limitation of perception was supposed to play, according to my dashing plan, just a positive role. After all, what is the most dangerous thing for a recovered drug addict? - Other drug addicts who will lead you into temptation! And I gave Sasha instructions, not in words, but in deeds, how not to perceive drug addicts. Just don’t perceive it! Those two were drug addicts to him. His eyes saw them, his ears heard them, his body felt them, but his mind did not perceive them!

And there was a lesson for those two - they were able to see firsthand how much of life can be hidden from them.

But it was a shock for Oksana and me too! Although we have read and heard about similar experiences more than once. A person looks straight at him, they touch him, they turn to him, but he, in the literal sense of the word, receives zero attention! There are so many things around that we, seemingly normal people, look at and don’t notice. We may not notice what is right in front of our noses. This experience makes us think that the world around us can be so different than we are used to perceiving it that it is difficult to even imagine!

Right now, there may be so many different things going on here that we may not hear or see. That's what we do. The smallest part of the world makes up our life. But what it is like in all its diversity and what actually exists is unknown. Signals go past the dominant... And the dominant is a picture of how the world works and what can and cannot be in it, formed since childhood. So what can be in our pictures of the world will be, and what cannot be will not be, unless you imagine it one day, but you rub your eyes and there is nothing. No, because it shouldn't be! You don’t have to be a drug addict, you don’t have to go into a trance - we’ve been in a trance almost since birth. This is all the work of the Dominant principle. This is an omission...

The next property of perception that demonstrates the operation of the Dominant principle is generalization. When information is summarized. A trivial example: a man was cheated on by his wife, once, twice... Divorced, married to someone else, and this one cheated on him. “Yeah!” he says, “all women are whores!” Two unsuccessful experiences, and this person is already making a generalization that already includes all (!!!) women on Earth. At this moment, in his mind, all women are really fused into one generalizing image that is annoying to him. He doesn't know all the women. He only knew two from this side. Maybe there are some who aren’t whores after all!

Such conclusions are made quite often. Now, when I tell you something, I also make generalizations. This is convenient: everything, always, anyone, everyone, never... This sometimes helps in conveying the material and is quite natural when the interlocutors understand that generalizations are a convention that helps not to go into details. But this greatly distorts reality when there is no such awareness.

Let's now see how a dominant is formed. Let's take, for example, a certain system. Let this be an example from physiology - the nervous system. So, a signal arrives in one of the areas of the nervous system: excitement arises in the system. There is some aftereffect time until the system responds to the excitation and returns to its initial state. If, while the system is still excited, the next signal arrives, and then another and another, then the excitation begins to accumulate. If signals arrive at a certain frequency, preventing the system from reaching an unexcited state, then, after some time, persistent excitation occurs. Such a focus of excitation begins to respond to a wider range of signals, that is, to those impulses that were normally neutral for this system and did not excite it in any way. If the process continues, then the arousal becomes so harsh and comprehensive that it reacts to anything. As one of my friends says: “My neighbor, if she’s already wound up, then that’s it, nothing can stop her, even if you argue with her, even if you agree, the result is the same.”

If signals arrive with a low frequency, so that the system has time to “rest”, it will respond adequately to these signals and a dominant will not be formed. If the signals come very often, then a kind of extreme inhibition occurs—the dominant gets fed up and this part of the system stops responding to anything at all. In the body of an ordinary person, as a rule, there are many such overfed dominants - areas of the body that have become insensitive and unresponsive. When a person begins to take care of himself, such lesions begin to dissolve and in place of the previously insensitive area, everything suddenly begins to move, like it boils...

If signals arrive more or less regularly and not too rarely, and not too often, then a dominant is formed and becomes stable. It begins to occupy the entire focus of consciousness.

Now about the magnitude of the signals that excite the dominant. For each dominant, three types of signals can be distinguished according to their strength. The first is that the signals are too weak. They are below the threshold of excitation of the system and the dominant lets them pass by. There are a majority of such signals in the surrounding world. Let's assume that your current dominant problem is a bad tooth. You look out the window - a fly is crawling on the glass, people are walking outside the window and many other things are happening. But for your tooth (or rather, for your attention fixed on the tooth) this is no worse and no better. All these signals are below the dominant threshold. The second type of signals is average. They just reinforce and strengthen the dominant. Regarding a bad tooth: someone shouted loudly behind the wall, the tooth began to ache more... And finally, too strong signals: suddenly they called you and informed you of a large cash bonus. Excited by the happy news, you forget about the tooth for a while. Or, leaving the room, you tripped and broke your knee. The pain in my knee got worse and also distracted my attention from the tooth. As they say, wedge with wedge... But, there is also a type of super-strong signals that destroy any stable dominant, but along with it the carrier of the dominant itself can be destroyed...

I will not go into detail here about the methodology that allows you to build a practice based on the Dominant principle. It requires serious practical individual transmission. I will only say that it exists and we use it.

If we look now not from the point of view of a separate dominant, but from a larger scale - from the scale of a person’s personality, as a collection of various dominants, then we will see the following picture: when you and I turn to some topical issues, we find out what is dominant at the moment, the center of excitation, that is, we get a kind of “snapshots” of the cross-section of the personality that dominates at the moment - that which “sticks out”, that which violates the integrity of the system. Further, following a special methodology, we go beyond the limits of personal conditioning, connecting with the natural flow of life, where current dominants are born and die out, not forming a rigid structure, but following the moment...

Now about the other side of the practice, which is also associated with the principle of Dominance. In order to answer the main question of practice and life, you need to form a very powerful dominant of aspiration, a dominant of intention... Only when everything else is insignificant in comparison with the desire to answer this question, only then can the answer happen. Only when all other concerns, interests, thoughts become secondary and the dominant intention becomes dominant. Then it is possible to comprehend your true nature. And, then, from this position - free life creativity...

Let us now move from the high pathos of these words to simple everyday examples. There is a funny, albeit old, joke about how a dominant is formed. Watson decided to wean Holmes from smoking. Taking advantage of the moment when Holmes left the room, he took his pipe and picked it in his ass, hoping that the bad smell and taste would discourage Holmes from his addiction. But Holmes, upon returning, lit a cigarette as if nothing had happened. The next day, Watson repeated his experiment. Holmes calmly lit a cigarette again... A month has passed: Holmes smoked and continues to smoke, but Watson can no longer do without a pipe... The dominant - it requires reinforcement...

Dominant is a stable focus of increased excitability of nerve centers, in which excitations coming to the center serve to enhance excitation in the focus, while inhibition phenomena are widely observed in the rest of the nervous system.

The concept was introduced by the Russian physiologist Alexei Alekseevich Ukhtomsky, who developed the doctrine of the dominant since 1911, based on the works of N. E. Vvedensky and other physiologists; Moreover, the first observations pointing to the idea of ​​a dominant were made several years earlier. The very first observation that formed the basis of the concept of dominance was made by Ukhtomsky in 1904: It was that in a dog, during the period of preparation for defecation, electrical stimulation of the cerebral cortex does not give the usual reactions in the limbs, but increases excitation in the apparatus defecation and promotes the onset of a permitting act in it. But as soon as defecation is completed, electrical stimulation of the cortex begins to cause normal movements of the limbs. - Ukhtomsky A. A. Dominant and integral image. - 1924. Properties of the dominant center

increased excitability;

· ability to summation;

· excitation is characterized by high persistence (inertia);

· ability to disinhibit.

Dominant in physiology, a focus of excitation in the central nervous system, temporarily determining the nature of the body's response to external and internal stimuli. The dominant nerve center (or group of centers) has increased excitability and the ability to persistently maintain this state even when the initial stimulus no longer has an activating effect (inertia). By summing up the relatively weak excitations of other centers, D. simultaneously affects them in an inhibitory manner. Under natural conditions, D. is formed under the influence of reflex excitation or the action of a number of hormones on the nerve centers. In an experiment, D. can be created by direct influence on the nerve centers with a weak electric current or certain pharmacological substances. The dominance of some nerve centers over others was first described by N. E. Vvedensky (1881). In elucidating the mechanisms of formation of conditioned reflexes, I.P. Pavlov noted that a long-term maintained level of increased excitability of certain areas of the cerebral cortex largely determines the dynamics of higher nervous activity in normal and pathological conditions. The main provisions of the doctrine of D. as the general principle of the work of nerve centers were formulated by A. A. Ukhtomsky on the basis of experimental studies performed by him and his colleagues (1911–23). D. is expressed in the readiness of a certain organ to work and maintaining its working condition. D. in the higher centers of the brain serves as the physiological basis for a number of mental phenomena (for example, attention, etc.). ═ Lit.: Ukhtomsky A. A., Dominanta, M.≈L., 1966; Mechanisms of dominance. (Symposium materials), Leningrad, 1967. ═ N. G. Alekseev, M. Yu. Ulyanov.

· The principle of dominance was formulated by A.A. Ukhtomsky. Dominant is the dominant focus of excitation in the central nervous system (CNS). This rather persistent excitation acquires the significance of a dominant factor in the work of other centers: it accumulates excitation from individual sources, and also inhibits the ability of other centers to respond to impulses that are directly related to them. For example, a person in a fit of creativity may forget about food and sleep. This is an example of physiological dominance. The pathological dominant is a sharply increased focus of excitation in the central nervous system compared to the norm. The cause may be trauma, infection, stress, unreacted toxic emotion: anger, pain, fear, resentment. The state of a pathological dominant, in contrast to a physiological one, is harmful to the body of its carrier, as it limits its adaptation to the environment. The pathological dominant creates conditions in the body for prolongation or relapse of the disease process

To illustrate the second principle of brain function known to science - the “dominant principle”, let us give a clear example.

Imagine that you have a feeling of hunger. What immediately comes to mind? Of course, food. All thoughts, as if on command, will rearrange themselves, no matter what the head is busy with, into an orderly line and “go” in the given direction. The brain at this moment seems to be infected, infected, and this infection is desire. A.A. Ukhtomsky, an outstanding scientist, the author of the doctrine of the dominant, saw in this the principle of dominance, when the center of excitation that arises in the brain (dominant) suppresses all other desires and needs, ignores various types of opposition, which, by the way, only “turn it on” , but is not an obstacle for him; redistributes forces and drives us in one direction, given by the dominant. The dominant of fear, hatred, depression, passion, etc. works in the same way.

As is known, the sexual behavior of a frog is expressed in the so-called “hugging” reflex of the male, designed to hold the female. If during the hugging reflex, i.e. during a period of increased sexual arousal, the toad is subjected to some kind of extraneous irritation (pricked with a needle, given an electric shock), then the hugging reflex of the animal will not only not weaken, but, on the contrary, will intensify. Moreover, the usual defensive reaction to such irritation will not arise at all. The dominant, as it turned out, is necessary for the instinct of self-preservation in order to ensure purposefulness and efficiency of activity in the presence of numerous foci of excitation in the brain, due to the mass of situations that provoke us. In other words, the dominant does not ensure chaotic activity, but concentrates all forces and resources on solving one priority task. Thus, based on the above, we can formulate the principle of dominance.

The principle of dominance is a mechanism of the brain, thanks to which a single focus of excitation predominates in it, and all other excitations are not only not taken into account, not considered and not implemented in behavior, but, on the contrary, are inhibited and reoriented, so to speak, transferred to the rails of the dominant excitation, completely obey him.

The brain is the whole Universe! How many different, often multidirectional processes occur in it simultaneously, how many of them would like to realize themselves in practice! But the order in this chaos is impressive. Numerous excitations, thanks to the brain’s ability to create a dominant, are reduced, concentrated, optimized and directed to serve a single goal, to achieve one result, which is currently the most desirable and significant. However, we have to admit that man has an amazing ability to use to his own detriment even that which is created by nature to help her. Let's try to explain what we mean.

An animal, for example, has relatively few dominants, and how easily they are excited are so easily and disappear after implementation. This is understandable, because, in addition to the fact that there are few of them (to escape from danger, to feed themselves, to mate), they do not bother with such categories as conventions, prejudices, superstitions and the like. Another thing is the person.

Every time you just carefully observe the animal, you get the feeling that the person sitting in it is mocking you.

E. Canetti

People have many needs, and in most cases they “spill over”: to become not just the best, but the best, the first in everything, loved, respected, to be safe from all possible and impossible troubles, to satisfy your claims and ambitions where it is , from the point of view of common sense, is not necessary, and in some cases it is simply meaningless. This gave rise to one philosopher to express the opinion that the basis of most of the madness that a person does is stupidity.

There are also purely exclusive needs - from sexual (in all their sophistication, sharpness and originality) to aesthetic and religious. It is the implementation of the latter that sometimes leads to shocking consequences, to the point that a person loses his human face, turning into a zombie, abundantly watering the earth with blood and tears.

Cruelty is hidden in the depths of human instincts, and fanaticism is a camouflage for it.

This, unfortunately, is the logical end of the implementation of hypertrophied dominants. But we come to this after sober reflection and after everything happened. When some fantasy becomes the cornerstone, turns into a “hegemon”, then as a result of the well-known principle of dominance, all our vital forces are concentrated at this point, at this point, ready to sweep away everything on their way to a cherished dream, or a meaningless idea, then the mind seems to turn off and the person “goes on a rampage”, to the last, no matter what.

Passion pays no attention to the rules of the game. She is, at least in one case, free from indecision and self-love; from nobility, nerves, prejudices, hypocrisy, decency; from hypocrisy and philosophizing, from fear for one’s pocket and for one’s position in this world and the next. No wonder artists depicted it in the form of an arrow or wind. If it were not so stormy and lightning-fast, the Earth would long ago have been rushing through empty space - free for rent.

D. Galsworthy

Ukhtomsky said that the dominant has two “ends.” The first - “internal” - is the result of satisfying a need (for example, food after eating), the second - “external” - is the result of the forced displacement of the dominant dominant by another, stronger, more important and relevant at a certain moment (for example, an animal stops eating when someone or something threatens her safety). However, the above examples of human dominance are played out with the participation of an irrepressible and boundless consciousness. Such a dominant becomes the center of attraction of all conceivable and inconceivable forces of a person, absorbs these forces, spins, like a centrifuge, all the “stuffing” of the psyche, grinds its content, pours, like a real steelmaker, the created mash into the only forms it needs. For example, the desire to lose weight among some representatives of the fairer sex can turn into a dominant killer, which leads to the complete depletion of a person’s physical and psychological resources.

"The world is like our dominants!" - said 0.0. Ukhtomsky. We consider all people based on our own ideas about life, our own interests.

Those who are “obsessed” with prestige and status will look at how their interlocutor is dressed; a regular at beer bars will not understand regular visitors to museums, who, in turn, will consider him primitive, and the like.

in the end, we even understand our attitude towards ourselves based on our own dominants. If we seem to ourselves to be ugly, we will assume that this is a generally accepted opinion. If we consider ourselves not smart enough, we will be afraid that others will guess about it. If we have developed a feeling of resentment, then no matter what they say to us, no matter what other people do for us, it will seem to us that they wanted to offend us. Why is this happening? Because the world is like our dominants.

Each has its own motive, each is captured by its own dominant.

Now let us remember what was said above: dominants in humans can be extremely unproductive. Her needs are very exaggerated, and often simply unrealistic. And that is why the world so often seems to a person to be an annoying misunderstanding, full of deception and injustice.

If such feelings arise, then, according to the principle of dominance, they will only intensify in the future. According to this principle, our anxieties and our depressions develop, and any other “complexes” - from inferiority to delusions of grandeur.

The activity of nerve centers is not constant, and the predominance of the activity of some of them over the activity of others causes noticeable changes in the processes of coordination of reflex reactions.

Investigating the features of intercentral relationships, A. A. Ukhtomsky discovered that if a complex reflex reaction is carried out in the animal’s body, for example, repeated acts of swallowing, then electrical stimulation of the motor centers of the cortex not only ceases to cause movements of the limbs at this moment, but also intensifies and accelerates the course of the beginning chain reaction of swallowing, which turned out to be dominant. A similar phenomenon was observed during phenol poisoning of the anterior sections of the spinal cord of a frog. An increase in the excitability of motor neurons led to the fact that the poisoned paw responded with a rubbing (shaking) reflex not only to the direct irritation of its skin with acid, but also to a wide variety of extraneous irritants:

lifting an animal from a table into the air, hitting the table where it sits, touching the animal’s front paw, etc.

Similar effects, when various reasons do not evoke a response that is adequate to them, but a reaction already prepared in the body, are constantly encountered in human behavior (the meaning of this is accurately conveyed, for example, by such proverbs as “whoever hurts, talks about it” , “a hungry godfather has pie on his mind”).

In 1923, A. A. Ukhtomsky formulated the principle of dominance as a working principle of the activity of nerve centers.

The term dominant was designated the dominant focus of excitation in the central nervous system, which determines the current activity of the body.

Main features, dominants the following: 1) increased excitability of nerve centers, 2) persistence of excitation over time, 3) the ability to sum up extraneous stimuli and 4) inertia of the dominant. A dominant (dominant) focus can arise only under a certain functional state of the nerve centers. One of the conditions for its formation is increased level of excitability of nerve cells, which is caused by various humoral and nervous influences (long-term afferent impulses, hormonal changes in the body, effects of pharmacological substances, conscious control of nervous activity in humans, etc.).

An established dominant can be a long-term condition that determines the behavior of the organism for a given period. Ability to sustain arousal in time - a characteristic feature of the dominant. However, not every source of excitation becomes dominant. An increase in the excitability of nerve cells and their functional significance is determined by ability to sum up arousal upon receipt of any random impulse.

Ascending nerve impulses can be sent not only along a direct specific path - to the corresponding projection zones of the brain, but also through lateral branches - to any zones of the central nervous system (see § 6 of this chapter). In this regard, if there is a focus in any part of the nervous system with an optimal level of excitability, this focus acquires the ability to increase its excitability by summing up not only its own afferent irritations, but also those of strangers addressed to other centers. It is not the strength of excitation, but the ability to accumulate and summarize it that turns the nerve center into a dominant one. The phenomena of summation are best expressed only with a moderate, optimal, increase in the excitability of neurons. This is expressed in the fact that the dominant is most easily reinforced by weak stimuli and extinguished by strong ones.

The more neurons are involved in a given focus of excitation, the stronger the dominant and the more it suppresses the activity of other parts of the brain, causing the so-called coupled inhibition. The nerve cells included in the dominant focus are not necessarily located in one area of ​​the nervous system. Most often, they form a certain system of cells (according to A. A. Ukhtomsky, a “constellation” or constellation of neurons), located in different floors of the brain and spinal cord. Such complex ones are, for example, dominants that ensure the performance of muscular work. Their external expression can be stationary supported movement and working posture, as well as the exclusion of other movements and postures at this moment. These dominants include cells of various areas of the cerebral cortex and subcortical sections associated with the organization of motor activity, as well as cells of various emotional and vegetative centers (respiratory, cardiovascular, thermoregulatory, etc.).

The integration of a large number of neurons into one working system occurs through mutual attunement to the general pace of activity, i.e., through the assimilation of rhythm. Some nerve cells reduce their higher rate of activity, others increase their low rate to some average, optimal rhythm. The dominant group of nerve centers working in a common rhythm inhibits centers with other rhythms of activity. The significance of the phenomenon of rhythm assimilation as a mechanism for the formation of a dominant focus and a mechanism for its functional isolation from the total mass of nerve cells has recently been confirmed by electrophysiological studies in animals and humans.

An important property of the dominant is inertia. Once a dominant has arisen, it can be maintained for a long time even after the initial stimulus is removed, for example, during the implementation of chain motor reflexes. Inertia is also expressed in the fact that the dominant can persist for a long time as a trace state (potential dominant). When the previous state or the previous external situation is resumed, the dominant may arise again. Such reproduction of the dominant occurs in the athlete’s body conditioned-reflexively in the pre-start state when, to a certain extent, all those nerve centers that were part of the working system during previous training are activated. This is manifested in the strengthening of the entire complex of functions associated with muscular work: central, muscular, excretory, vascular, etc. Mental performance of physical exercises also reproduces (updates) the dominant system of centers, which provides the training effect of imagining movements and is the basis of the so-called ideomotor training.

Normally, the nervous system rarely lacks any dominants. Non-dominant state - this is a very weak excitation, distributed more or less evenly across various nerve centers. A similar state occurs in athletes during the process of complete relaxation, when autogenic training. Through such relaxation, one achieves the elimination of powerful working dominants and restoration of the functioning of the nerve centers.

As a factor of behavior, the dominant is associated with higher nervous activity, with human psychology. The dominant is the physiological basis of the act of attention. It determines the nature of perception of irritation from the external environment, making it one-sided, but more purposeful. In the presence of a dominant, many influences of the external environment remain unnoticed, but those that are of particular interest to a person are more intensively captured and analyzed. Dominant is a powerful selection factor for the biologically and socially most significant stimuli.

The emergence of dominant states in the cerebral cortex is observed at the beginning of the formation of temporary connections. A conditioned reflex is formed when the dominant focus of excitation begins to respond not to any afferent stimulation, but only to a specific stimulation that has become a signal.

Since the dominant is associated with a certain reaction it defines a one-sided expression of behavior. The more pronounced the dominant, the more it inhibits other ongoing reflexes. Thus, from many degrees of freedom, one is selected - if there is a dominant in certain motor centers, only that part of the muscles that is controlled by these centers works intensively, and the rest is turned off from the sphere of activity as a result of associated inhibition. At the same time, many vegetative centers are also inhibited. At the initial moment of intense muscular work, conditioned reflexes can almost completely disappear: salivation, blinking, etc. This ensures the expediency of movements and the efficiency of energy expenditure. Powerful motor dominance during static efforts due to associated inhibition leads to breath holding and depression of the cardiovascular system.

As a motor skill develops, the system of dominant nerve centers improves. All unnecessary nerve centers are excluded from it, only those that are necessary and sufficient to carry out the motor task remain.

The dominant focus of excitation is characterized by the following properties:

Increased excitability;

Persistence of excitation (inertia) over time, since it is difficult to suppress with other excitation;

The ability to summarize subdominant excitations;

The ability to inhibit subdominant foci of excitation in functionally different nerve centers.

A dominant focus can arise under the influence of hormonal factors; an example could be a change in the reflex activity of a male frog during the mating period, when any irritation begins to cause an increase in the tonic hugging reflex instead of the usual reflex. It can also arise as a result of local chemical influences that sharply increase the excitability of nerve cells or suppress inhibition processes in them. The impression that the dominant focus “attracts” excitation to itself from other brain structures is, of course, apparent; such excitation under normal conditions had the opportunity to achieve it, but the synaptic effects it caused were so weak that they could not manifest themselves in the final result. With the formation of a dominant focus, the effectiveness of the same influences increases so much that they are able to reproduce the reflex reaction characteristic of it. In turn, influences spreading from the dominant focus are also very effective; they can dramatically change the reflex activity of adjacent structures.

. Feedback principle

The processes of self-regulation in the body are similar to technical ones, which involve automatic regulation of the process using feedback. The presence of feedback allows us to correlate the severity of changes in system parameters with its operation as a whole. The connection between a system's output and its input with a positive gain is called positive feedback, and with a negative gain is called negative feedback. In biological systems, positive feedback is implemented mainly in pathological situations. Negative feedback improves the stability of the system, i.e. its ability to return to its original state after the influence of disturbing factors ceases.

Feedback can be divided according to various criteria. For example, according to the speed of action - fast (nervous) and slow (humoral), etc.

There are many examples of feedback effects. For example, in the nervous system this is how the activity of motor neurons is regulated. The essence of the process is that excitation impulses propagating along the axons of motor neurons reach not only the muscles, but also specialized intermediate neurons (Renshaw cells), the excitation of which inhibits the activity of motor neurons. This effect is known as the process of recurrent inhibition.

An example of positive feedback is the process of generating an action potential. Thus, during the formation of the ascending part of the AP, depolarization of the membrane increases its sodium permeability, which, in turn, increasing the sodium current, increases the depolarization of the membrane.

The importance of feedback mechanisms in maintaining homeostasis is great. For example, maintaining a constant level of blood pressure is carried out by changing the impulse activity of the baroreceptors of the vascular reflexogenic zones, which change the tone of the vasomotor sympathetic nerves and thus normalize blood pressure.