Brain Development in Victims of Child Abuse Essay -- Neurobiology of C

Child abuse is a widespread problem in America and beyond. Every year more than 3 million reports of shaver abuse ar made in the United States involving more than 6 million children(1a). For many years, experts believed that the negative effects of child abuse, such as emotional problems, flashbacks to traumatic events, and even learning problems, were psychological phenomena only, able to be cured with therapy. Now, however, beliefs be being changed with the help of tools such as magnetic resonance imaging imaging, able to detect actual changes in maven anatomy, and it appears that what doesnt kill you may still permanently weaken you, at least when it comes to child abuse.The promontory danger to the brain in child abuse, besides direct speck by the abuser, is the show placed on fragile, developing tissue. Traumatic stress placed on the brain, such as that executed by abuse, will air out the locus ceruleus, which through a release of the neurotransmitter norepinephrine wi ll cause the release of neurotransmitters such as epinephrine, dopamine, and more norepinephrine (2). These neurotransmitters are called catecholamines and are complemented by glucocorticoid stress hormones such as cortisol (2). Stress hormones and neurotransmitters are necessary to the normal function of the brain, and are to some point beneficial, just now unusually high levels of these chemicals caused by abuse, especially over an extended menses of time, can be very harmful (3). When levels of glucocorticoid hormones are elevated for an point of several days due to stress, the neurons receiving these hormones dumbfound to be damaged (4). Neurons begin to atrophy and the growth of new neurons is halted (4). If the stress continues for too long, neurons will perish (4). This problem is ex... ...II, an article from the Journal of the American Academy of Child and jejune Psychiatry, about the damaging effects of stress hormones on the developing brainhttp//info.med.yale.edu/c hldstdy/plomdevelop/development/January99.html5)Developmental traumatology part II brain development, an article expound a study of the effect of post-traumatic stress disorder upon the brains of abused children http//www. acquirementdirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T4S-3WK3RV4-4&_user=400777&_coverDate=05%2F15%2F1999&_rdoc=1&_fmt=full&_orig=browse&_srch=%23toc%234982%231999%23999549989%2399771%20AND%20(%23UOI%23B6T4S-3WK3RV4%204)%20&_cdi=4982&_sort=d&_acct=C000018819&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=400777&md5=4e6b134b5ccc9a8bd44fd1a8d05a5eab6) Teicher, Martin H. Scars That Wont Heal The Neurobiology of Child Abuse. Scientific American 286.3 (2002) 68-75