We have seen from numerous other articles published on this site that there exists an abundance of evidence that severe, protracted and repetitive childhood trauma can adversely affect the development of the brain both in terms of its architecture and functionality. Specific brain areas that research suggests may be damaged in this way include: the […]
Mothers suffering from serious depression are less likely than non-depressed mothers to interact with their infants in joyful, stimulating and positive ways. Instead, they are more likely to demonstrate negative moods around their infants, to exhibit more anxiety, sadness and agitation, to be less playful, to smile and laugh less, to frown more, to lack […]
Chronic toxic stress and damage to the brain’s physical development. We have seen from other articles that I have published on this site the severe and prolonged childhood trauma resulting in chronic toxic stress can damage the brain’s development in various regions (e.g. the amygdala and hippocampus). Because the brain’s plasticity (physical changeability) is […]
We have already seen from other articles that I have published on this site that, according to major studies, severe and protracted childhood trauma can dramatically increase our risk in adulthood of suffering from various physical illnesses (e,g, heart disease), accelerate our physical ageing processes and reduce our life-expectancy by nineteen years. However, additionally, […]
We have seen in other articles I have published on this site that severe and protracted childhood trauma can increase the risk of damage to particular brain regions (e.g. the amygdala) and, in so doing, increase our risk of being diagnosed with various psychiatric conditions during adulthood such as complex PTSD and borderline personality disorder […]
There is increasing evidence to suggest that chronic, severe stress during childhood can lead to changes in the brain’s reward circuitry that leads individuals to prefer short term gains and immediate gratification over postponed, long-term gains and pleasures. So, for example, rather than save up money to start a business or for an exotic […]
Many of us who have experienced severe and protracted childhood trauma, particularly if we have gone on to be diagnosed with conditions such as complex PTSD or BPD as a result, are frequently liable to ‘act out’ unbearable inner pain (being unable to express it in healthy ways or even to understand its origin) in […]
A study conducted by Quinlan et al. (2018) on the effects of bullying on the brain and involving the study of 682 teenagers required these young people to fill out questionnaires about the extent to which they experienced bullying. The study ran over a number of years (i.e. it was a longitudinal study) and each […]
Childhood Trauma Can Harm Brain And Increase Risk Of Depression. However, The Good News Is The Brain Can Recover. This Article Explains How. When we are at our most depressed, we may look at (as others perceive it) a beautiful sunset and derive no more pleasure from it than we would from looking at a […]
Neurocardiology is a recently developed area of academic, scientific research initiated by the researcher J. Andrew Armour M.D., Ph.D. (1991) and is the study of how the nervous system and the cardiovascular system interact physiologically. According to Demorree (2013), those suffering from psychological distress may be helped as more becomes understood about how the brain, […]
BPD, The Love-Hate Relationship And Neuroscience We have seen from several other articles that I have published on this site that one of the hallmarks of borderline personality disorder is the tendency of sufferers of this devastating psychiatric condition to flip suddenly from idealizing/feeling love towards individuals and demonizing/feeling hate towards them (which, of course, […]
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and complex posttraumatic stress disorder (complex PTSD) can both be considered forms of brain INJURY even though the cause of the injury is extreme psychological trauma rather than a physical trauma such as a blow to the head with a hammer or car accident. However, when psychiatrists treat PTSD with drugs, […]
A simplified way of describing the structure of the brain is to think of it as comprising three main regions (e.g. MacLean, 1990) that develop in the following order from birth to a person’s early or mid-twenties. FIRST TO DEVELOP: The brain stem and midbrain : Main functions : Sensory / motor and basic survival […]
According to Mobbs, the brain consists of two areas involved in how we experience fear as shown below : It is becoming increasingly recognized that overactivity in the brain’s fear circuitry may be of fundamental relevance to not only complex-PTSD and PTSD, but to many other psychiatric disorders as well and it clearly follows, therefore, […]
Childhood trauma can lead us to become severely clinically depressed as adults, and this happened to me. Electroshock therapy or Electro-convulsive therapy (ECT) is only used as a last resort on people who are at high risk of suicide and/or are unable to function in even the most basic areas of life. ECT is, in fact, misunderstood […]
