Rudeness is a Neurotoxin
 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-dou..._b_765908.html

Dr. Douglas Fields

"...Studies have shown that children exposed to serious psychological trauma during childhood are at risk of suffering increased psychiatric disorders, including depression, anger, hostility, drug abuse, suicidal ideation, loneliness and even psychosis as adults. Using modern brain imaging, the physical damage to these children's brain development can be seen as clearly as a bone fracture on an X-ray. Early-childhood sexual abuse, physical abuse and witnessing domestic violence undermine the normal wiring of brain circuits, especially those circuits connecting the left and right sides of the brain through a massive bundle of connections called the corpus callosum. Impairment in integrating information between right and left hemispheres is associated with increased risk of craving, drug abuse and dependence, and a weakened ability to make moral judgments....

A series of studies... shows that even hostile words in the form of verbal abuse can cause these brain changes and enduring psychiatric risks for young adults... in 2006, the researchers showed that parental verbal abuse was more strongly associated with these detrimental effects on brain development than was parental physical abuse. In a new study... they report that exposure to verbal abuse from peers is associated with elevated psychiatric symptoms and corpus callosum abnormalities. The main causes are stress hormones, changes in inhibitory neurotransmitters, and environmental experience affecting the formation of myelin electrical insulation on nerve fibers. The most sensitive period for verbal abuse from peers in impairing brain development was exposure during the middle school years. Why? Because this is the period of life when these connections are developing in the human brain, and wiring of the human brain is greatly influenced by environmental experience...

... Our brains are the product of the environment in which we are nurtured through the first two decades of life... Our experience during childhood and adolescence determines the wiring of our brain so powerfully that even processing of sensory information is determined by our childhood environment. Whether or not we can hear eight notes in a musical scale or 12, or whether we find symmetry in art beautiful or boring, or whether we can hear the difference in sound of the English letter "R" vs. "L", depends entirely upon whether our brains wired up during childhood in Western culture or Asian culture. The neural circuitry underlying those sensory perceptions is directed by what we experienced in early life, and these circuits cannot be rewired easily in the adult brain..."

Excellant Post! Thank you!
 

Dear M.,

If you find this topic interesting, you may be interested in reading, " This is Your Brain on Music," by former professional musician turned Neurological Researcher, Daniel J. Levitin. On page 214, he discusses how the rythmic elements of music, "typically take on a more regular, hypnotic quality that can induce trance states." ... "When the beat is predictable, neural circuits in the basal ganglia, (the habit and motor ritual circuits), as well as regions of the cerebellum that connect to the basil ganglia, can become entrained by the music, with neurons firing synchronously with the beat."

On page 226 he writes, "The power of music to challenge the prediction centers of our prefrontal cortex, to simultaniously stimulate emotional centers in the limbic system and activate motor systems in our basil ganglia and cerebellum serves to tie a aesthetic knot around these different neurochemical states of our being, to unite our reptilian brain with our primate and human brain, to bind our thoughts to movement, memory, hopes and desires."

Thanks for bring up this often overlooked topic.

Vicky

We keep telling them...
 

1. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2009 Dec;163(12):1135-43.

Adverse childhood experiences and adult risk factors for age-related disease:
depression, inflammation, and clustering of metabolic risk markers.

Danese A, Moffitt TE, Harrington H, Milne BJ, Polanczyk G, Pariante CM, Poulton
R, Caspi A.

Social, Genetic, and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Department of Psychology
and Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA.

OBJECTIVE: To understand why children exposed to adverse psychosocial experiences
are at elevated risk for age-related disease, such as cardiovascular disease, by
testing whether adverse childhood experiences predict enduring abnormalities in
stress-sensitive biological systems, namely, the nervous, immune, and
endocrine/metabolic systems.
DESIGN: A 32-year prospective longitudinal study of a representative birth
cohort.
SETTING: New Zealand.
PARTICIPANTS: A total of 1037 members of the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and
Development Study. Main Exposures During their first decade of life, study
members were assessed for exposure to 3 adverse psychosocial experiences:
socioeconomic disadvantage, maltreatment, and social isolation.
MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: At age 32 years, study members were assessed for the
presence of 3 age-related-disease risks: major depression, high inflammation
levels (high-sensitivity C-reactive protein level >3 mg/L), and the clustering of
metabolic risk biomarkers (overweight, high blood pressure, high total
cholesterol, low high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, high glycated hemoglobin,
and low maximum oxygen consumption levels.
RESULTS: Children exposed to adverse psychosocial experiences were at elevated
risk of depression, high inflammation levels, and clustering of metabolic risk
markers. Children who had experienced socioeconomic disadvantage (incidence rate
ratio, 1.89; 95% confidence interval, 1.36-2.62), maltreatment (1.81; 1.38-2.38),
or social isolation (1.87; 1.38-2.51) had elevated age-related-disease risks in
adulthood. The effects of adverse childhood experiences on age-related-disease
risks in adulthood were nonredundant, cumulative, and independent of the
influence of established developmental and concurrent risk factors.
CONCLUSIONS: Children exposed to adverse psychosocial experiences have enduring
emotional, immune, and metabolic abnormalities that contribute to explaining
their elevated risk for age-related disease. The promotion of healthy
psychosocial experiences for children is a necessary and potentially
cost-effective target for the prevention of age-related disease.


PMID: 19996051 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Slow and painful, but making progress
 

Madlyn,

Thanks for posting. I had it my "To Do" folder but am so far behind. It' funny because at first was thinking this had a loose connection to us here, then I started reading. Then my first thought was Rick's theory and connection to our childhood. This all makes perfect sense given how plastic our brains are in childhood.

Incidentally, this doctor wrote a book called "The Other Brain"; his whole premise is saying "there is more than just neurons" and their transmission at play in disease. He is focusing on glia cells as key in disease process.

Thanks! I plan on downloading the Kindle version shortly.

Rick,

They are getting there...newer field of psychoneuroendocrinology is emerging and their research on psycho-social aspects of disease origin especially looking at stress and HPA axis. I imagine neurology will be dragged kicking and screaming given their reaction to Zamboni's involvement of vascular system in MS.

Thanks for citations

Laura

sweeet music - what grace
 

Yes. Although it is helpful to track down insults, the science of epigentics guides us to focus on thee solution rather than a "reason" for the problem. ts not our envronment ultimately that determines our destny but how we respond to it.

suffering isn't unique to PWP! It happens to EVERYONE!

This thread reminds me that parkinsons teaches me alll aabout what i identify with....when i become victim. what a lesson in focus this is!