How Adverse Trauma Affects the Brain in Childhood

Let's go right back to conception and the state of the Parents DNA that the child will carry from their parents. Genetically and emotionally. What energy was coming through the Mothers body to the child's?

Did she have a lovely pregnancy or was she filled with fear at home, or continued medical issues she had to navigate and try and protect the pregnancy at the same time?

Did the Mother have previous Trauma?

Then birth Trauma for the Child and the Mother?

Babies born prematurely or with a Severe Medical Condition and in and out of Hospital?

A Home filled with Domestic Violence , Alcohol and Drug addiction.

How do you think this would shape the child development?

But deep changes in the brain happen when Adverse childhood experiences like

Sexual Abuse and Sexual Assault as a Child

War

Abandonment

Almost all psychologically informed theories of Mental Health rely on the core concept that early life adversity increases our risk of later psychological difficulties.

Below are some points taken from Gary Donohue https://www.bps.org.uk/psychologist/how-adverse-childhood-experiences-shape-our-brains

There are multiple brain pathways influence by early childhood effects. In addition to the well-established 'affective' pathway (associated with emotional dysregulation) that we may be familiar with, there is also evidence supporting a 'cognitive' pathway by which the effects of childhood trauma may be transmitted.

Cognitive neuroscience of mental health disorders has shed light on how the brain is shaped by adverse childhood events. In particular, we know much more about how components of the limbic system are altered by early adversity and stress. One of these component structures is the amygdala, the almond shape subcortical structure synonymous with threat appraisal.

Overactivation of the amygdala region in response to threat in those with experience of childhood adversity is the single most robust finding reported in the literature, whether in studies of children, healthy participants, or individuals with mental health difficulties (Mothersill & Donohoe, 2016). For these individuals, this is often subjectively experienced as feeling more easily threatened or 'triggered' in a range of situations, including even 'neutral' situations not generally considered threatening by others. This threat hyper-sensitivity has in turn been associated with a dampening of the frontal lobe's ability to modulate threat perception once the limbic system has become over-activated. It has also been associated with stress-related reductions in hippocampal volume, a region synonymous with consolidating and reconsolidating of memories, and which is exquisitely sensitive to stress. Reduction in hippocampal volume following childhood trauma is likely to further challenge our ability to bring to bear past memories so as to better distinguish between risky/threatening situations and 'false alarms' (Dannlowski et al., 2012).

Adverse childhood events might affect cognitive and social cognitive processes later in adulthood. The reason is this – as well as the emotionally 'triggering' effects of childhood trauma, many affected individuals show difference in cognitive processing even when not currently stressed or distressed. This has led researchers to hypothesise that stress exposure may increase risk for serious mental health disorders directly via a 'cognitive' pathway that is additional to the affective/threat pathway (e.g. Myin-Germeys & Os, 2007).

Social cognition involves the ability to recognise and think about the emotions and intentions of others (e.g. emotion recognition, theory of mind), as well as thinking about our own intentions and reactions in social situations (emotional self-regulation).

The effects of trauma on the brain are more broadly experienced than we first imagined. When we think about how the brain is shaped by adverse childhood experiences, we need to move beyond thinking that only isolated regions like the amygdala are affected, and instead consider the brain-wide effects of childhood trauma. In short, the story of a too easily triggered amygdala impacting on threat appraisal and emotional self-regulation in disorders of anxiety, mood and emotional dysregulation, is also only part of the full story. The second is that the widely held view among psychological therapists that early life experiences results in subtle cognitive 'biases', is only part of the picture. Instead, we need to understand that early childhood adversity may result cognitively in more fundamental challenges to accurately recognising and processing social relevant stimuli.