2019-12-02 10:43:22
Science also studies the consequences of human behavior. We have a clear example in the study of the consequences of child abuse. Among all the types of abuse that children can suffer, probably the most pernicious is that inflicted by the people who should care for them. Psychology and neuroscience have confirmed that child abuse inflicted by fathers or mothers translates into a serious risk for the appearance of physical and mental illnesses later in life.
Certain studies have revealed that there are factors associated with the consequences during adult life of child abuse. The first of these is made up of stress hormones, which exert a multitude of effects on the body to prepare it to give an effective response to stressful situations. When the response bears fruit, the stress disappears, but the problem arises when the problematic situations are continuous and the response becomes chronic.
It has been proven that the effects of stress in children are more serious if it is caused by abusive behavior on the part of those who must take care of the children.
A group of researchers from several American and Canadian universities subjected a group of laboratory rats, just 8 days old, to the presence of an abusive foster mother. When the rats reached 13 days of age, they found that they had developed social integration problems associated with abnormalities in two regions of the brain, the amygdala and the hippocampus, which had already been identified in other studies as probable targets of stress. . The amygdala is a brain region involved in managing certain emotions, such as fear and anxiety, while the hippocampus is a region involved in memory.
These studies suggest that childhood abuse by parents and caregivers would cause more serious problems in children’s brain development than those that can be caused by stress suffered in the absence of parents. They also indicate that their behavior, if it leads to stress in their children, can have more pernicious effects than those caused by other stress situations not caused by them.
Referencia: Charlis Rainekia, et al. During infant maltreatment, stress targets hippocampus, but stress with mother present targets amygdala and social behavior. www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1907170116
Jorge Laborda, December 1, 2019.
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