the stress of early life can have lasting negative effects on the brain -
For children, stress can go a long way. A bit provides a platform for learning, adaptation and adaptation. But a lot of it - the toxic chronic stress of poverty, neglect and physical abuse -. Can have lasting negative impacts
A team of researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison has recently shown this kind of stress experienced early in life could change parties to develop children's brain responsible learning, memory and the treatment of stress and emotion. These changes may be associated with negative impacts on behavior, health, employment and even the choice of romantic partners later in life.
The study, published in the journal Biological Psychiatry , could be significant for public policy leaders, economists and epidemiologists, among others, says lead study author UW and recent PhD graduate Jamie Hanson.
"You do not really understand why things that happen when you are 2, 3, 4 years stay with you and have a lasting impact," says Seth Pollak, a co-leader the study and UW-Madison professor of psychology.
Yet in early life stress has been linked before to depression, anxiety, heart disease, cancer, and a lack of academic achievement and employment, said Pollak, who is also director of the emotion of the child research Laboratory, UW Waisman Center
"given how expensive these early experiences are stressful for society -. unless you understand what part of the brain is affected, we will not be able to fit something to do about it, "he said.
For the study, the team recruited 128 children around 12 years old who had suffered either physical abuse, neglect early in life or from households with low socioeconomic status.
researchers conducted extensive interviews with children and their caregivers, documenting behavioral problems and stress of cumulative life. They also took pictures of the brains of children, focusing on the hippocampus and amygdala, which are involved in emotion and stress treatment. They were compared to similar children in households of the middle class that has not been abused.
Hanson and the team described by the hand of the hippocampus and amygdala of each child and calculated their volumes. The two structures are very small, especially in children (the word is Greek for almond amygdala, which reflects its size and shape in adults), and Hanson and Pollak say automated software measurements from other studies can be prone to error.
indeed, their main measures found that children who experienced one of three types of early life stress had smaller amygdalas than children who had not. Children from households with low and children who had been victims of physical violence socioeconomic status also had hippocampal volumes smaller. Put the same images through an automated software showed no effect.
The behavioral problems and increased stress of cumulative life were also associated with smaller volumes of the hippocampus and amygdala.
Why early life stress can lead to small brain structures is unknown, said Hanson, now a postdoctoral researcher at Duke University for Neurogenetics, but a smaller hippocampus is a risk factor demonstrated negative results. The amygdala is much less understood and future work will focus on the importance of these changes in volume.
"In my opinion, it is an important reminder that as a society, we must participate in the types of experiences children are having," says Pollak. "We shape the people they will become."
But the results, Hanson and Pollak say, are only change neurobiological markers; a display device of the robustness of the human brain, the flexibility of human biology. They are not a crystal ball to be used to see the future.
"Just because it is in the brain does not mean it was fate," said Hanson.
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