Shirley J. Davis (Morgan)

Childhood trauma does horrendous things to a child’s mind, body, and psyche. Why? What does it change in the developing brain, and how? This article explores neurotransmitters, how they affect different regions of a child’s brain, and how these effects can be felt into adulthood. We shall also examine other factors that can lead to a child developing a mental health disorder that persists into adulthood.

What Are Neurotransmitters?

Neurotransmitters are chemical messengers that carry signals between brain cells (neurons) and other cells throughout the body. These chemicals affect a wide range of physical and psychological functions and keep our brains and bodies working. Neurotransmitters are vital to controlling everything from our heartbeat to our ability to learn.

For neurons to send messages, they need to communicate with one another, and they do this across a tiny gap called the synapse. This gap is where the signal from one neuron is passed to another, through a process known as neurotransmission.

In neurotransmission, small sacs called vesicles release neurotransmitters from the end of one neuron into the gap. The neurotransmitters cross the gap and attach to receptors on the neighboring cell, where they either excite or calm (inhibit) it. What happens depends on the neurotransmitter and the receptor it reaches.

The Role of Cortisol and Toxic Stress

Cortisol is a steroid hormone made by the adrenal glands and released into the bloodstream to help the body respond to stress or danger. Cortisol has many functions, and having the right balance is critical for human health.

Some of the roles cortisol plays in the body include:

• Helping the body respond to stress or danger
• Increasing the body’s use of glucose
• Reducing inflammation
• Helping control blood pressure

Cortisol is vital for the fight-or-flight response, which keeps a person safe by recognizing and reacting to perceived danger. However, if cortisol levels stay chronically high, real damage can be done to the brain and other vital organs.

Producing too much or too little cortisol leads to serious problems in the body.

A 2005 report from the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child found that children exposed to toxic stress during sensitive periods of brain development showed changes in the brain regions responsible for fear, anxiety, and impulse control. It also found changes in the neural connections dedicated to reasoning, planning, and behavioral control.

Toxic stress is defined as strong, frequent, or prolonged activation of the body’s stress response system. It happens when a child faces experiences that are chronic and uncontrollable, with no way to escape them.

Extreme and repeated exposure to toxic stress leads to a stress system that responds at lower thresholds, to events that might seem harmless to others. The stress response is then switched on more often, and for longer, than necessary, sometimes all day.

Eventually, the child’s stress response is so overloaded that they never experience relief.

Seven Key Neurotransmitters and How They Affect Survivors Later in Life

There are many types of neurotransmitters, each with its own function. However, seven play vital roles in how we deal with stress, especially stress experienced in childhood trauma.

The chemicals we make in response to stress are important for escaping or confronting danger. However, when the developing brain of a young child is bathed in stress hormones that never return to normal levels, the results can be disastrous. Such is the case for children who live in traumatic environments where they are in constant danger physically, emotionally, or sexually.

Myelination and Childhood Trauma

Myelin forms layers of insulation around nerve fibers, which increases the speed at which information can be processed. Neurons connect to each other and communicate, and these connections depend on our childhood experiences. We start out at birth with many more connections than we need and prune them as the most-used connections are strengthened.

The brain’s ability to change with experience is called plasticity, and it decreases over time. Importantly, plasticity decreases at different rates in different systems of the brain. Some areas of the cortex continue to reorganize with experience until late in life, while others, such as language centers, are less likely to change.

Trauma interrupts the normal development of the brain. Overstimulation by stress hormones affects the brain’s ability to process memory and the ability of the two hemispheres of the brain to communicate. While the survival center (the brain stem) continues to keep us alive, the emotional center cannot correctly regulate where memories are stored, and the hemispheres become fragmented in their ability to store information.

These changes can be long-lasting.

Although the exact process behind the formation of alternate identities is not well understood, severe and repeated trauma before about the age of five is thought to be a vital factor in the development of dissociative identity disorder.

Other Factors That May Cause Mental Illness

Scientists believe that many mental illnesses result from problems in the communication between neurons. For example, disruptions involving chemicals such as dopamine, glutamate, and norepinephrine have been linked to schizophrenia. One reason scientists connect dopamine with schizophrenia is that people who use cocaine, which increases the amount of dopamine between brain cells, sometimes show similar symptoms.

While there may indeed be a connection between schizophrenia and dopamine, scientists do not fully understand what causes mental illness, but they know some risk factors are related to a person’s environment, social circumstances, and genetics.

Environmental factors may include a head injury, poor nutrition, and exposure to toxins.

Social factors that can harm a child’s mental health and affect them into adulthood include:

• Death of a family member
• A parent who commits a crime
• Severe discord between the parents
• Having a parent who lives with a mental illness
• Overcrowding
• Poverty
• Abuse
• Neglect
• Exposure to violence

Genetic factors also play a role in conditions such as autism, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and ADHD.

If a child is exposed to both environmental and social risk factors and also has a genetic vulnerability, the likelihood of developing a mental illness increases greatly.

Ending Our Time Together

It is clear from scientific research and experience that childhood trauma leads not only to changes in the brain but to an altered life outcome. While some of these changes are long-lasting, the way people react to fear, to change, and in their relationships with others can change.

It is not easy to work through the issues caused by childhood trauma. It takes arduous work and dedication to healing. Attending therapy, and working with a psychiatrist on medications that affect how the brain uses neurotransmitters, will help.

No one needs to suffer from severe mental health issues alone. There are millions of people who understand and will help lessen the impact of childhood trauma, but you must reach out for that help.

“Healing takes courage, and we all have courage, even if we have to dig a little to find it.” — Tori Amos

“The place of true healing is a fierce place. It’s a giant place. It’s a place of monstrous beauty and endless dark and glimmering light. And you have to work really, really, really hard to get there, but you can do it.” — Cheryl Strayed

References

• National Scientific Council on the Developing Child. (2005). Excessive stress disrupts the architecture of the developing brain (Working Paper No. 3).
• National Institutes of Health. (2007). Information about mental illness and the brain. In NIH Curriculum Supplement Series. National Institutes of Health (US).

© Shirley J. Davis. Shared on Ivory Garden with the author’s permission.