Over on my professional adoption blog, one of my partners wrote an interesting blog entry entitled Early Abuse Severe Neglect Damages Genes. I went looking for the original article, and I found two: here and here.
According to a study that will be published in a journal called Nature Neuroscience, child abuse survivors have lower levels of the NR3C1 gene, which affects a person’s ability to deal with stress. The researchers studied brain tissue for people who suffered severe child abuse and compared it to the brain tissue of others who did not suffer from child abuse, which is how they found the difference.
According the article entitled Child Abuse Alters Brain Gene,
The researchers hypothesize that because of the changes in this gene’s expression, people might have trouble turning off their stress response. This could result in a person’s body being in a constant stressful state, leading to future problems with depression, anxiety and possibly even suicide.
The article went on to speculate that perhaps this form of hypervigilance could be reversible.
I was really excited to learn about this study. First of all, it is such a relief whenever there are physical findings that explain a child abuse survivor’s reaction to the trauma. Rather than us child abuse survivors just being “crazy,” we can now point to a tangible, physical explanation for our hypervigilance. That’s huge!
Also, I am encouraged by the speculation that hypervigilance could be reversible. If scientists come up with an “antidote” to the hypervigilance, I will be first in line to volunteer to test it out. I would love to know what it is like to live my life without being flooded with adrenaline every night as soon as the sun goes down.
And, finally, it is nice to see the connection being made in the science community between child abuse and depression, anxiety, & suicide. Of course, we in the child abuse survivor community are intimately familiar with these aftereffects, but now the rest of the world will have to acknowledge the connection.
What are your thoughts on this study?
Photo credit: Lynda Bernhardt
Blooming Lotus 
Let’s be really careful here, as survivors of child
sexual abuse. I was attacked at 14 but it was a year
before I would menstruate so I was more a child
in more ways than a teen. But, the attacks I continued
to suffer in young adulthood had something to do
with that but more to do with the overall environments
I was in and where society was with those issues.
And, I was attacked always because I was threatening
as a female…that was probably the major cause of the
first episode as a kid. Girls and women are attacked
because they are hated in society and the ones who
get targetted are often particularly threatening in soem way.
I was (excuse the lack of modesty) a way smarter and
way more successful and talented athlete than most males
and that was part of why various males attacked me.
I was also not impressed with men in general an dnever
felt the slightest bit inferior AT ALL as a female.
So this study is probably interesting and validating
but let’s be careful that it doesn’t get used to deny
that (especially girls and women) get attacked serially
b/c they’re strong, not just b/c they were attacked as kids
and that made them weak somehow. This study could
be used to say that women who got attacked as kids
are then imagining being re-attacked, or misinterpreting
actual attacks. In fact, rapists and sex assailants COUNT
on the notion that a girl who’s been attacked one will
not be believed and therefore they will attack her serially.
This is a major problem and issue and this study really has
to be met with an enlightened and vigilant attitude.
Vinyata,
You don’t need to worry about the gene being used to invalidate anyone’s experience. They had to use the brain tissue of people who had already passed away. :0)
Take care,
– Faith
I think this is a very interesting study but is surely in it’s infancy. It will be interesting to see more about it in the future. It would have been extremely informative if they would have been able to measure the genetic difference of an abused individual before the abuse and then after. But that would be impossible. So there is still the question as to whether these genetic differences came at birth or after abuse. But I like the idea that there could be a reversal of some kind, what hope!
Is there any info yet about whether science can test for this ‘hypervigilant gene’ in live people? I would love to see if they could b/c as I write above that very notion that there is something wrong with me has been used by basically society in general to somehow prove that I’ve been imagining or over-reacting to what is truly chronic and contemporaneous attacks.
(And that keeps attackers coming as they know they will be believed, not me. Except as an adult it’s more the issues at stake that I get attacked for, not as much direct physical attacks)
So if there is one I would gladly take it and prove that I have no such hyper vigilance personally, I’m not saying that no one does. I have seen this argument used by the psych system too, even the politically enlightened ones, about the attacks on girls and women. No one can believe how much our class system pivots on violence towards certain females and a class of women (the poor). I have been diagnosed by various idiots of the psych establishment and many women like me who have survived rape,etc., are said to be “bipolar II” which is a mood disorder that has no psychotic features. It’s a way to say that women are overreacting to what’s not that serious or to what is in actuality systemic and therefore chronic and re-occurring not in our heads but in actuality. Supposedly they are developing a test you can take to see if you have that gene as we speak. I would take it in a minute, laugh at the whole psych establishment which has no field without the abuse of women, and get a couple friends (female) to take it, too, as they have been attacked by the system and had their oppression patholigized as their mental or physical illness.
If anyone knows or hears about the hypervigilant gene test please let me know! And all this is not to invalidate those who did get that and for whom it is its own oppression
Faith,
I always learn so much on your site. Thank you for showing up and sharing.
I find even the idea of this study fascinating. I often wonder about how much of our personalities are determined by genetics and how much is environmental and can be reversed or altered with effort.
I hope to learn more about this. Will stay tuned.
Have a great week!
pf
I would have to see the study, but I dont think it is a gene, they are talking about, a simply blood test and you can test for a certain gene, no brain tissue or any other needed. You cant have a lower level of a gene, you either have it or dont. I do know that studies have shown that abuse victims have various brain difference like hippocamus and amdgala (definitly spelt wrong) size, this is due the effect of prolonged stress on the brain through various stress hormone such as cortisol. They also have done tests fmri, showing that traumatic memories are stored/coded in a different part of the brain than regular memories, they get caught in a loop basically which is why we experience them as intense flashbacks as they are stored in an area of the brain limbic area that is responsible for emotions I think . Trying to think here but I know there is a specific part of the brain that is responsible for the fight or flight response. Dont forget also that if a child is abused for a period of time, exposure to high levels of stress hormones can alter brain chemistry and cause permanant changes as the brain is still developing. So basic I dont think that NC thingy is a gene, I dont think its a neurotransmitter either at least not one Im familiar with. Where did you find this study ? I wouldnt mind having a look at it.
on reading the direct quote from study..hmm gene expression is very different than having the gene or not, basically I think what they are saying is that stress can damage that existing gene mostly likely a chromosome on the gene which effects the expression…still bothering me/ fishy though, would love to see the study. In terms of stress response, it is inate, the flight/flight thing I talked about above. the difference is ie where we fight or flight and then there is the freeze response well documented in animals, they studies show basically it depends on the level of stress hormones and many other things which mode will express itself. Consistently high levels of the stress hormone cortisol will cause hypervigilence..this is proven, my bet is that the changes in brain tissue has to do with this, cortisol at consistently high levels can actually cause the adrenal glands to shut down due to over work, and cause many other physical problems and Im pretty sure that it is responsible for the reduced hippocamous and amydalga size in the brain. I also question the study in regards to numbers of brain tissue examined, and how they ascertained who was abused vs not abused. The logistics of a study like this are huge. Examining 5 of each would not be enough to generalised the findings. Dont mean to slam your info Faith, but my educational background and field I work in causes me to be skeptical
Hi, mo.
You sound like my sister. (She is a biology major.) I don’t have a scientific mind. When she launches into her biology-speak, I feel like the Charlie Brown cartoons where I only here “whomp, whomp, whomp, whomp, whomp” like he does from the teacher. It’s a running joke with us – I constantly tell her to dumb it down for me!! LOL
The study will be published in the journal Nature Neuroscience. I would love to read the article, but I fear that I won’t be able to follow along. Perhaps you can read over it and “dumb it down” for us non-science folks?? I would be happy to post your comments as a “guest blog” for others to read.
I don’t feel “slammed upon” at all. I very much appreciate having someone educated in the field of science or medicine explain the gobblety-gook to me. :0)
– Faith
I have just realised that I have PTSD and have found it very difficult to convince my Doctor that early trauma can be the cause of PTSD.
I find the whole area of genes rather double sided. Ofcourse genes effect who we are. However before genes were blamed, it was instinct and before that something else and before that “humours” in the air and before that the Devil. To find a Scapegoat is convenient and also gets us off the hook of having to face the Pain of not being as loved as we would have hoped and that is a terrible feeling and need to have to mourn.
There is a fantastic book called “Why Love Matters, How affection shares the Brain” by Sue Gerdhart in which she describes how the first three years of our lives tend to shape who we are for the rest of our lives. Many genes express the tiny amount of chemical in reaction to how are treated so if our envroment is negative, destructive and even violent then we are adapting to that situation to survive.Many scientists are studying consequences of poor child rearing rather causes of mental distress. It is only once we leave our childhood home and enter the bigger world that we find that we have adapted to our Parents and not the greater world and thus find life more difficult than we need to because our Parents brought us up to be a credit to them rather than a credit to ourselves.
Genes play a small but significant part in building who we are but as Craig Ventor who mapped the human genome is quoted as saying (and he should know) “we are who we are because of our enviroment”.
I feel that many of these scientists who keep looking for things to blame other than our upbringing are simply finding a convenient Scapegoat for not having to look inside thier own minds.
The taboo of never criticising one’s Parents runs deep in Society and needs to be broken down.
As adults we are responsible for what we do and to truly understand ourselves we need to understand our past so that we can be free and move on. As children we were innocent organisms totally dependant on our Parents for everything. For a parent to assume Power over us in a vain attempt to bolster their own feelings of powerlessness built up in them by thier own omnipotent Parents is dishonest, damaging and hypocricitcal.
I came up with a simple phrase which I try to abide by.
“Refer to the past, Prepare for the Future and live in the Present”.