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A paper just out in Nature Neuroscience on the effects of childhood abuse on the brain has been predictably shilled by the NY Times as being the first evidence that childhood abuse can have an effect on your brain. Now before you all get all hot and bothered consider the fact that childhood abuse may have had an effect on your brain but that it is not irreversible. This study reported a change in the gene coding for the glucocorticoid receptor in the hippocampus in abused subjects who suicided compared to controls. The gene can be changed by life experience, and by implication can be re-changed if you will. The fact that childhood abuse can affect the brain is nothing new. In fact this writer showed smaller hippocampal volume in abuse related PTSD back in 1997. So this new report is really not so much news. The blogosphere is invoking Buddhism to deal with what seems to be negative news of irrevocable damage, but I would say that there is evidence of change in the brain with treatment, and that may include meditation (we have studies ongoing on that now that look promising) so don’t give up hope. And don’t freak out every time you see the latest drug shill news release.
Oh btw my mother was a Buddhist and when I went back to our old house after 40 years I discovered that there were three sheep living in the “farm” behind our house. Since my mother was a Buddhist I decided that she may have been reincarnated as a sheep, maybe one of those sheep since she liked that house with its Japanese theme (Buddhism) and all. Anyhoo the current owner is also a Shephardess and spinner of yarn and she gave us some so Mrs. Bremner has been knitting me a scarf from the wool. Kinda like Penelope. LOL!
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- Paithnick Cross, near Keith, Scotland
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just to make it clear, I by no way think that meditation is the only way to prompt the healing phenomena of neuroplasticity…it’s just one way and the one I personally most frequently practice…
I like neurofeedback too and good old fashion therapy can certainly rewire one’s brain…
see Take These Broken Wings…oh my god…what an incredibly beautiful inspiring movie of two women who are healed of severe schizophrenia through the lovingkindness of gifted therapists who could see the health underneath the symptoms.
as far as I know this is the only place you can buy it:
http://www.iraresoul.com/dvd.html
It was a spiritual experience for me to watch it.
oh…it’s a documentary so all real and true…nothing fictionalized.
Paithnick Cross is one of the original Bremner stomping grounds.
wow…what an idyllic beginning to what turned pretty damn sour…(meaning your early childhood—not your life!!)
beautiful…
Hmmmm, is that a scarf….or a burial shroud?
Paithnick Cross was where the Bremners came from 150 years ago, in Scotland, this picture is from our vacation there last summer. Our house though similarly had a field in the back yard but the sheep came after we left. I only had a video clip of them so I substituted Paithnick Cross. Mrs. Bremner loves sheep and thinks she was a sheep in a prior life. We moved away after my mother died, but yes it was a VERY beautiful place, a farm right on the water. Burial shroud? Hmm. Some people in my family say I should pay more attention to the living than the dead, but if they are still alive in your thoughts are they really dead?
Well, you referred to Penelope.
I don’t know if the dead are really dead, but I visit with my mother several times in my dreams each month. And, I still hear her voice in my head, repeating her sage advice about various things.
I guess it depends on how “alive” the person was in life. My mother was a force of nature.
The idea is that we maintain a representation of people in our mind when they are not around, so when they die the representation doesn’t go away. It is like they are still alive.
Child abuse is the worst form of evil, and occurs more frequently that what is comprehensible. I have a girl as a friend whose father sexually abused her for a dozen years. She is now 35, and cannot sleep a full night, and this is due to the infiltration of such events into the part of her brain and soul that keeps things forever. Yet she, as with other child abuse victims, is resilient, and is able to function socially and professionally with the exception of the ghosts that haunt her at night.
Dr. Bremner,
Thank you for your blog. I have been reading it for the last 15 minutes. Now back to work. Really curious re Childhood abuse. I have a 39 year old son who at age two was abused by his nanny and still holds a lot of resentment against me for “allowing it to take place.”
regards and keep writing and having the truth come out.
The hippocampus is the area of the brain that is injured from extreme trauma. As a rule people who have brain injuries are given a medical diagnosis and then a prognosis that includes a lengthy treatment plan.
Brain injury rehabilitation includes intensive monitoring of the patient’s progress. A treatment plan as well as a rehabilitation center that specializes in monitoring the progress of the patient are provided by the medical establishment.
Yet patients that have hippocampus damage are referred to psychotherapists who practice the only form of therapy the insurance industry will pay for — cognitive behavioral therapy.
Neuroscience has advanced yet our culture still perceives brain injury due to trauma as a mild form of injury. A injury that will go away if the patient would meditate or take medication or participate in cognitive behavioral therapy.