Mental health professionals have long been concerned about the long term effects of child abuse. An article published February 23, 2009 in Medical News Today examines this issue. The article reported on a study published online on 22 February in Nature Neuroscience. The researchers studied "...samples from 36 brains: 12 came from suicide victims who had been abused as children, 12 came from suicide victims who had no such history, and 12 came from people who had died of other causes (the controls)." The results were disturbing. "...the researchers looked at samples of the hippocampus from human suicide victims with a history of childhood abuse. The hippocampus is a region of the brain that plays a key role in regulating the stress response...They found changes in expression of the NC3R1 gene that were not present in suicide victims with no history of being abused in childhood. The changes weren't present in people who had died of other causes either...The researchers found that the child abuse victims had different "epigenetic" markings in a part of the brain that influences the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) function, a stress-response that increases suicide risk." The implications of this study are significant. Parents of children who experienced abuse should be very vigilant in looking for any signs of suicidal tendencies in their children. Second, mental health professionals should routinely screen all pediatric patients with a history of child abuse for suicidal tendencies. And third, public health professionals should make greater efforts to educate the public about the dangers and long term impact of child abuse.
The Bottom Line: The results of this study strongly suggest that child abuse damages the brain and increases the risk of suicide in abuse victims.
Source: Youtube, Orginal Article
Resources:
How to prevent and stop child abuse. Watch this top rated video from Youtube
Dr. Jeffrey Speller
Dr. Tanya Korkosz
Psychopharmacology Associates of New England
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