PTSD study of children shows changes in brain

When you read this, you are going to find some idiot claiming people with PTSD have smaller brains. After all, everything they can find to place blame on another human, they will jump at. If they do, they are the ones who are missing parts of their own brain and soul as well.

Study after study comes out proving the changes in the brain with people who have PTSD. It is not something that was already there. It came after trauma. This study in children exposed to trauma should be enough to cause everyone to become more aware of what PTSD is and what causes it.

Study finds emotional trauma can alter size of a child's brain
Jill Tucker, Chronicle Staff Writer

Sunday, August 26, 2007



Hoping to unlock some of the mysteries of post-traumatic stress disorder in children, a Stanford University researcher looked inside their heads.

What Dr. Victor Carrion found was startling: Children with PTSD and exposure to severe trauma had smaller brains.

Carrion found a nearly 9 percent reduction in the size of the hippocampus, a horseshoe-shaped sheet of neurons that deals with memory and emotions.

The study, released earlier this year, was just a first step toward understanding the physical effects of trauma and why some children have a greater ability to ward off physical and mental reactions.

The disorder is relatively new to the psychiatric community. PTSD was officially included in the list of mental disorders in 1980, but only for adults. Children were added in 1987. Early PTSD studies focused on Vietnam War vets and rape victims.

More recent research shows the rates in children depend on the type of trauma:

-- Parental homicide or sexual assault: nearly 100 percent.

-- Sexual abuse: 90 percent.

-- School shooting: 77 percent.

-- Ongoing community violence: 35 percent.

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