Early Stress Causes a Scarred Brain

Researchers at Stanford University report that they’ve found that children suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder have something else in common: a smaller hippocampus in their brains. A withered hippocampus may make a child less able to deal with stress and raise anxiety, Pediatrics journal reports. The children in the study also had higher blood levelsof […]

Researchers at Stanford University report that they've found that children suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder have something else in common: a smaller hippocampus in their brains.

A withered hippocampus may make a child less able to deal with stress and raise anxiety, Pediatrics journal reports.

The children in the study also had higher blood levelsof a stress hormone called cortisol, which has been shown to killhippocampal cells in animals.

This could set up a vicious cycle, where high cortisol causes more hippocampal damage, which in turn raises the anxiety.

It's not clear what this will mean for PTSD therapy, which often focuses on slowly exposing people to their fears and learning to deal with them. (Therapy for obesessive-compulsive disorder is similar.)

Stress may 'damage child brains'[BBC]