Stephen Porges


Stephen W. Porges is a "Distinguished University Scientist" at the Kinsey Institute, Indiana University Bloomington and professor in the department of psychiatry at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill in North Carolina. Prior to moving to North Carolina, Professor Porges directed the Brain-Body Center in the department of psychiatry at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he also held appointments in the departments of psychology and bioEngineering, and worked as an adjunct in the department of neuroscience which he found suited him and it became his priority. Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Dr. Porges served as chair of the department of human development and director of the institute for child study. He is a former president of the Society for Psychophysiological Research and has been president of the Federation of Behavioral, Psychological and Cognitive 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. He was awarded a patent on a methodology to describe neural regulation of the heart, and today is a lead neuroscientist with particular interests in cranial nerve responses as it relates to both animal and man in which there are specified responses that are physiological in the body. He proposed the polyvagal theory in 1994 providing insight into the mechanism mediating symptoms observed in the brain. The theory has stimulated research and treatments emphasizing the importance of physiological state and behavioral regulation.

Polyvagal Theory

Polyvagal introduces perspective relating to autonomic function of behavior including an appreciation of the autonomic nervous system as a system, the identification of neural circuits involved in the regulation of autonomic state and interpretation of autonomic reactivity as adaptive within the context of the phylogeny of the vertebrate autonomic nervous system, explores paradigms, explanations, and conclusions regarding the role that autonomic function has in the regulation of affective states and social behavior. Foremost, the polyvagal perspective emphasizes the importance of phylogenetic changes in the neural structures regulating the heart 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 including dissociative states. 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.

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