My brothers best friend from elementary school went through a traumatic accident when he was young. He was the oldest of his siblings, he was 10 when his parents had passed away leaving behind him, his 8-year-old brother and their 3 year old sister. When the accident occurred, there was an outpour of support to their family although their extended family themselves had started to fall apart. Growing up with him, my oldest brother notice he had to stand up and take a large role in parenting his younger siblings at such a young age. My brother said he was never calm and or happy, constantly in a state of worry and stress thinking of his siblings rather than himself. As they continued to get older, my brother noticed changes in him physiologically from when he was a young and happy kid. He started turning to drinking and drugs. This story peaked my interest in the effects of child stress into young adult or adulthood.
According to Early childhood stress exposure, reward pathways, and adult decision making, there is a large correlation between chronic stress in early childhood and a higher risk for behavioral problems in adulthood (Birn, et al., 2017). They used Monetary Incentive Delay (MID) task which activates the brains reward circuit along with Cambirdge Gambling Task (CGT) another risk taking decision making test. Both of these allowed for the understanding that the higher exposure to stress at a young age, the higher risk in decision making people are to make as they get into adulthood. This study allowed for me to see insight into why my brothers friend could’ve been exposed to poor risky behavior as he grew up compared to those with low stress exposure as a child. Along with this, a study on childhood stress and mother-rearing, (similar to growing up without parental guidance and relationship), in monkeys made the correlation to alcohol consumption as well. The higher ethanol drinking was greater in monkeys that were nursery reared. This was shown through their cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), which is related to behavioral changes, increasing. The levels of 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid (5-HIAA) in the CSF are directly related as well allowing us to examine these measurements in the brain to predict behavioral outcomes, the larger activity in the CSF and 5-HIAA tissues, the more likely to have alcohol consumption.
References:
Birn, R. M., Roeber, B. J., & Pollak, S. D. (2017). Early childhood stress exposure, reward pathways, and adult decision making. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114(51), 13549-13554. doi:10.1073/pnas.1708791114
Huggins, K. N., Mathews, T. A., Locke, J. L., Szeliga, K. T., Friedman, D. P., Bennett, A. J., & Jones, S. R. (2012). Effects of early life stress on drinking and serotonin system activity in rhesus macaques: 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid in cerebrospinal fluid predicts brain tissue levels. Alcohol, 46(4), 371–376. https://doi-org.dml.regis.edu/10.1016/j.alcohol.2011.11.003
Interesting study! I worked as a medical scribe for a psychiatrist for a little over a year. After I while, I realized that almost all of this pshyciatrist’s patients had experienced some type of traumatic event, with a large portion of them experiencing trauma in childhood. This has definitely changed the way I view any type of addiction, whether it be alcohol or an illicit drug. The following study also found that childhood trauma and substance abuse disorder were strongly correlated.
ReplyDeleteKhoury, L., Tang, Y. L., Bradley, B., Cubells, J. F., & Ressler, K. J. (2010). Substance use, childhood traumatic experience, and posttraumatic stress disorder in an urban civilian population. Depression and anxiety, 27(12), 1077-1086.