Effects of Child Abuse on the Brain

Child abuse, as well as physically and emotionally affecting a child, can actually change the structure and function of the brain, and these changes are not limited to physical and sexual abuse, but also occur with verbal abuse, according to Martin Teicher, professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School (Crombie, 2003). The corpus callosum, the bundle of nerve cells connecting the two hemispheres of the brain, is smaller than normal in abused children, leading to less integration of the two halves of the brain, which can result in dramatic mood and personality shifts, says Teicher. This narrowing of the corpus callosum was associated with neglect in boys and sexual abuse in girls.

There was also decreased activity in the parts of the brain associated with emotion and attention (Crombie, 2003). Patients with a history of sexual abuse or intense verbal abuse had less blood flow in the part of the cerebellar vermis, which helps maintain emotional balance, and the decreased blood flow impairs the function of this part of the brain. The vermis is influenced strongly by the environment, and is stimulated by movement.

The effects of child abuse on the brain involves stress hormones, producing a cascade of chemicals which have effects on signals that brain cells send and receive from each other, with the result that the brain becomes molded to over respond to stress (Crombie, 2030). Teicher speculates that it is hard to believe that the brain was not designed to cope

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h learning and memory. Children with PTSD develop learning and academic achievement problems and other symptoms related to hippocampal dysfunction, which could explain the delayed recollection of childhood abuse which often occurs. The hippocampus has important links to the medial prefrontal cortex, an area that mediates emotion and the stress response. Dysfunction of the medial prefrontal cortex has been implicated in PTSD. The hippocampus is involved in verbal declarative memory. The left hippocampus plays a role in verbal memory and the right hippocampus plays a role in visual memory (Glaser, 2000). Child abuse results in a number of psychiatric symptoms, including those of PTSD; dissociative symptoms such as derealization, amnesia, and a fragmented sense of self identity; anxiety, producing panic attacks and claustrophobia; and substance abuse (Bremner, 2002). The hippocampus is involved in learning and memory and is very sensitive to stress. The high levels of glucocorticoids released during the stress reaction cause damage to neurons in the CA3 region of the hippocampus, leading to a loss of neurons and dendritic branching. These chemicals also disrupt cellular metabolism, and increase the susceptibility of hipp

Category: Medical - E