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(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Post-traumatic stress disorder leaves permanent mental scars on those who go through emotional trauma, and new research shows the damage can be just as extensive in children.
Experiencing extreme stress like abuse and violence can cause children to isolate themselves from others, feel disconnected from reality and struggle in school, but new research may help kids with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) find better help.
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A new study is the first to give direct evidence that children with symptoms of post-traumatic stress suffer poor function of the hippocampus, the part of the brain responsible for storing and retrieving memories.
"The brain doesn't divide between biology and psychology," lead study author Victor Carrion, M.D., a child psychiatrist at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital in Palo Alto, Calif., was quoted as saying. "We can use the knowledge we get from understanding brain function to improve the psychology of the individual and vice versa."
Dr. Carrion and his team used functional MRI imaging to compare the brains of 16 young people with PTSD symptoms with those of 11 normal young people. During a test of word memory, those with PTSD symptoms made more errors on the recall part of the test and showed less activity in the hippocampus than control subjects. Kids who showed the worst hippocampus function were most likely to experience a specific set of PTSD symptoms that included "avoidance and numbering," difficulty remembering the trauma, feeling cut off from others and lack of emotion.
Experts say the findings may help parents cope better with their child's PTSD by not taking withdrawal personally and could help psychologists develop better ways to monitor the condition without using symptoms as an indicator. "That method has the disadvantage that we don't know what's happening at the neural level," Dr. Carrion said.
Dr. Carrion said in the future, doctors and scientists may be able to use fMRI scans of the hippocampus to determine which children are at high risk of PTSD after mass catastrophes.
Source: JAMA, December 9, 2009
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