Child Abuse Causes Lifelong Changes To DNA Expression And Brain

This study confirms what many in the trauma field already know - that child abuse permanently alters the brain. Now we know it also alters DNA - so it can actually impact evolution. The stress response - cortisol - apparently can seriously change brain function (shrinking the hippocampus and enlarging the amygdala) and can also change gene expression at the DNA level.

Child Abuse Causes Lifelong Changes To DNA Expression And Brain
A study led by researchers in Canada who analysed post mortem brain samples of suicide victims with a history of being abused in childhood found changes in DNA expression that were not present in suicide victims with no childhood abuse history or in people who died of other causes. The affected DNA was in a gene that regulates the way the brain controls the stress response.

The research was the work of scientists from the Douglas Mental Health University Institute and McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, and the Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences and was published online on 22 February in Nature Neuroscience.

Previous studies have shown that child abuse or neglect changes the hormonal stress response and increases the risk of suicide in the victim. Animal studies show that maternal care can influence the expression of genes that control the stress response.

In this study 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.

For the study the researchers used 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 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.

This finding builds on an earlier study published in May last year that showed how child abuse can leave "epigenetic" marks on DNA.

Epigenetics studies the way that DNA is expressed: that is when the code behaves in a way that is not exactly what the DNA program says. DNA itself, the fundamental code, is inherited from the person's biological parents and remains fixed through a person's lifetime.

But the genes in the DNA are coated with a layer of chemicals called DNA methylation. These chemicals influence how the DNA is interpreted and they can be affected by changes in the environment, especially in early life such as when the new embryo is made, in the womb, and then later in childhood.

Co-author Dr Gustavo Turecki, associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry at McGill University and who practices at the Douglas Mental Health University Institute, said:

"We know from clinical experience that a difficult childhood can have an impact on the course of a person's life."

"Now we are starting to understand the biological implications of such psychological abuse", added fellow co-investigator Moshe Szyf, a professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics at McGill.

The interaction between environment and DNA plays a key role in our ability to resist and deal with stress and this affects the risk of suicide, said the researchers. Epigenetic marks are the product of DNA and environment.

The researchers found that different types of care from the mothers changed the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) function in rats by altering the receptors in the brain. In earlier studies they showed that simple behaviours such as when mothers licked their baby rats in early life had a significant effect on epigentic markings on specific genes that affected behaviour throughout the offsprings' lives.

But they also found that these epigenetic marks can be changed in adulthood with treatments that change the DNA coating: the treatment is called DNA methylation and it reverses the change to the stress response.

The brain samples in this latest study came from the Quebec Suicide Brain Bank and the Canadian Institutes for Health Research and the National Institute of Child Health and Development in the US paid for the research.

"Epigenetic regulation of the glucocorticoid receptor in human brain associates with childhood abuse."
Patrick O McGowan, Aya Sasaki, Ana C D'Alessio, Sergiy Dymov, Benoit Labonté, Moshe Szyf, Gustavo Turecki & Michael J Meaney.
Nature Neuroscience Published online: 22 February 2009.
doi:10.1038/nn.2270

Click here for Abstract.

Sources: Journal abstract, McGill University.

Written by: Catharine Paddock, PhD
Re-posted with permission from Integral Options

Safe Places Sexual Violence Support Center

Safe Places now provides a comprehensive range of services to victims of sexual violence in Pulaski County, and statewide through a toll-free sexual violence crisis line.

Crisis intervention, trauma counseling, support groups, hospital accompaniment, criminal justice advocacy, and other supportive services are available for children, youth and adults.

Local hospitals emergency departments who request assistance for individuals who have been sexually assaulted will receive trained advocates at any time of the day or night if the patient desires our services.

Local Sexual Violence Crisis Line: 501-801-2700
Statewide toll free: 1-877-432-5368

Family Violence: Collateral Damage

"Domestic Violence"

We have heard it so much, it begins to mean nothing to us.

"Domestic Violence" is a sterile way to say, "Violence is happening in my family - in my home, in the one place I should feel safe and protected.

In some ways the term itself, and the services we currently provide to victims of family violence, are what I call "old school."

The reality is that family violence also means that children are being exposed to violence at home, and that this exposure is having devastating effects on them. Statistics tell us that 70% of men who batter their spouses are also abusing their children.

(National Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect Information, In Harm’s Way: Domestic Violence and Child Maltreatment, Washington, DC: National Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect Information, 1999)

We are also hearing very disturbing statistics like these:

• Children raised in violent homes are:

6 times more likely to commit suicide

26 times more likely to commit sexual assault

57 times more likely to abuse drugs

74 times more likely to commit other crimes against persons

• A recent study found that children who had witnessed their parents fighting, had IQ scores 8 points lower than their peers. (Development and Psychopathology, June 2003)
  

We must begin addressing family violence in a more holistic manner, in the context of family, and with intentional intervention and prevention services for children. Shelter services are important, but only 3% of women who experience intimate partner violence ever go to a shelter.

Most of the rest are in their homes where the secrets of family violence are securely kept.

A few have found refuge in the homes of friends or family.

We will find them in their communities . . . at work places and PTA meetings, in the grocery store or in the beauty salon, at their place of worship or at civic club meetings.

And their children? We'll find them in the classroom and on the playground.

Those are the places where we must focus our services - in the places where the victims and their children are living and playing and working . . . and acting as normal as possible so that they can keep the secret safe.

"Old school" domestic violence services cannot meet today's need. We have to go to the women and children in their worlds, walk with them on their journeys, encourage them to trust us, and assure them they are not alone anymore.

Our staff at Safe Places learned this very important lesson from one of our clients, an eleven year old victim of family violence who said to his advocate, "Why should I tell you anything? You can't protect me."

He was right. If we continue to do the same things we have always done, providing the same services we have always provided, we will not protect him. It is going to require more of us - more commitment, more creativity, and more attention to the children of family violence.

As he said through his T-Shirt for the Clothesline Project last year:

"Children should get a say. Your life is valuable."