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As many readers complain, the information infant-child abuse survivors most need to know is too scientific and complicated for us to understand! This is an excellent and important 2005 article on the subject:
The enduring effects of abuse and related adverse experiences in childhood by Robert F. Anda et. al. (with others….)
NOTE: for some reason CLICKING ON THE TITLE DOESN’T WORK! YOU HAVE TO COPY THE FOLLOWING INTO YOUR TOP ADDRESS BAR — I HAVE NO IDEA WHY THIS IS THE ONLY WAY TO GET TO THIS ARTICLE – or click below:
http://www.beforeyoutakethatpill.com/2009/6/anda_abuse.pdf
So, in the interests of all of us I am going to suggest that readers click on this title link and study the article. In the meantime, I am going to butcher it here as I try to highlight some facts that MIGHT make sense to us – and to see the researchers behind these words, check out the article itself (follow the copy-paste directions above)!! Buckle your seat belts, here goes!! I will try to clarify at least a small part of what this article contains:
“The organization and functional capacity of the human brain depends upon an extraordinary set and sequence of developmental and environmental experiences that influence the expression of the genome [our genes]…. Unfortunately, this elegant sequence is vulnerable to extreme, repetitive, or abnormal patterns of stress during critical…periods of childhood brain development that can impair, often permanently, the activity of major neuroregulatory systems, with profound and lasting neurobehavioral consequences.”
“Now, converging evidence from neurobiology and epidemiology suggests that early life stress such as abuse and related adverse experiences cause enduring brain dysfunction that, in turn, affects health and quality of life throughout the lifespan.”
“An expanding body of evidence…suggests that early stressors cause long term changes in multiple brain circuits and systems…. The amygdala mediates fear responses, and the prefrontal cortex is involved in mood as well as emotional and cognitive responses….”
“The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis plays a critical role in the stress response. There is an important interaction between development and stress….[in other words] young infants do not have a fully developed glucocorticoid (cortisol in humans) response to stress.”
“Substantial research has focused on the relationship between development, early stress, the HPA axis, and the hippocampus, a stress-sensitive brain region that plays a critical role in learning and memory…. The hippocampus has the capacity to grow new neurons in adulthood (neurogenesis), but stress inhibits neurogenesis…and memory function….”
“Early stressors cause long-term increases in glucocorticoid responses to stress [also related to development of autoimmune disorders!] as well as decreased genetic expression of cortisol receptors in the hippocampus and increased genetic expression of corticotrophin-releasing factor in the hypothalamus, both of which may contribute to dysregulation of the…(HPA) system [a huge factor in all anxiety ‘disorders’ from PTSD to depression and in autoimmune disorders].
“Early environmental deprivation [neglect] inhibits hippocampal neurogenesis; conversely, neurogenesis is enhanced by enriched environments… Alterations in serotonergic [serotonin]…receptors also contribute to deficits in social attachment and regulation of mood and affect following early stress.”
[I am leaving out a long list of research here – skim it in the article]
“Deprivation of developmentally appropriate experience may reduce neuronal activity, resulting in a generalized decrease in neurotrophin production, synaptic connectivity, and neuronal survival…resulting in profound abnormalities in brain organization and structure…. Thus, childhood abuse and exposure to domestic violence [including verbal abuse] can lead to numerous differences in the structure and physiology of the brain that expectedly would affect multiple human functions and behaviors….”
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Skip down through the tables and the facts on this research study and read the findings at the end of this.
I am supposed to be responding to Question #6 for the book my daughter and I are writing – but I am having a very hard time getting past this kind of information because it is all that really matters. These kinds of changes are what created my mother’s terrible sickness in the first place that directly led to the terrible abuse she perpetrated against me — which in turn stole from me the best of my life by creating trauma-caused changes in MY development.
In the light of these kinds of facts NOTHING about my own personal story matters!! THIS is the information that matters to all infant-child abuse survivors!!
AGAIN – NOTE: for some reason CLICKING ON THE TITLE DOESN’T WORK! YOU HAVE TO COPY THE FOLLOWING INTO YOUR TOP ADDRESS BAR — I HAVE NO IDEA WHY THIS IS THE ONLY WAY TO GET TO THIS ARTICLE or click below:
http://www.beforeyoutakethatpill.com/2009/6/anda_abuse.pdf
The enduring effects of abuse and related adverse experiences in childhood
Before anyone takes a pill to ‘feel better’, READ THIS!!!!! This is the kind of information nobody tells us. I can’t chew this all up and spit it into my readers’ mouths. I am not a momma bird feeding a nest full of immature fledglings. We CAN read and understand these facts! No amount of therapy or doctoring in the universe is going to make a dent in ‘fixing us’ if we refuse to begin to understand what happened to change our development in the first place.
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Stop the Storm 