Child abuse affects the child brain

More and more, through things such as human physiological research, specifically on suicide victims, and discussed more here, it’s clear that child abuse, especially to younger children, can change both the structure of the human brain and how it expresses itself.

The first study, albeit with very small numbers, focues on the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) function, as this is one of the most important stress “pathways” in the body.

Results revealed that genes associated with the good functioning of this pathway had been modified extensively as opposed to those found in the other 24 bodies, which ruled out the possibility of suicide causing these changes.

“In humans, childhood abuse alters HPA stress responses and increases the risk of suicide,” Michael Meaney of McGill Univeristy says in the new paper published in a recent edition of the journal Nature Neuroscience.

A “known” thing, now getting initial research confirmation.

The more detailed review of Meaney’s work indicates that early child abuse changed the expression of a gene that is important for responding to stress. In other words, it resets a person’s “anxiety thermostat.”