Research has revealed that being a victim of physical and psychological abuse in childhood reduces the volume of gray matter in the brain, compromising later cognitive development. Experts from King’s College London and FIDMAG are the architects of the finding, which only confirms, after recent evidence that child poverty affects emotional control, that the environmental adversities that a child faces during their The first five years of life mark your brain health for life.
According to the definition of the World Health Organization (WHO), child abuse is the abuse exercised against a person under 18 years of age and that damages their dignity and health in any of its forms (sexual assault, neglect, neglect, commercial exploitation …). According to the present research, people affected by this type of violence have a lower volume of gray matter in certain brain regions that develop during adolescence, and that could explain the cognitive and emotional deficits that they manifest in their maturity . This alteration of the brain anatomy would be caused by the cascade of physiological and neurobiological changes that the abuse triggers by acting as a stressor.
To obtain this conclusion, the team compared the brain MRIs of a total of 600 individuals of different ages, half of them survivors of child abuse. The results showed that those with a history of childhood abuse had significantly less gray matter volume in several areas of the brain: the right superior temporal and orbitofrontal gyrus that extended to the amygdala, the insula, and the medial temporal and parahippocampal gyrus. , as well as in the lower frontal and left postcentral gyrus. These areas of the brain have a relatively late development, that is, years after the situation of abuse , which reaffirms the need for continuous monitoring, as studies on bullying have already shown.
The conclusion of the study consolidates the idea that children with deficiencies, whether material or emotional, have a higher risk of suffering from chronic diseases throughout their lives .
