brain differences in DID/MPD patients, child abuse changes the brain

Hippocampal and Amygdalar Volumes in Dissociative Identity Disorder
The neurobiological consequences of early stress and childhood maltreatment
Recent findings regarding brain development and childhood abuse/adversity
Does Child Abuse Permanently Alter the Brain?
The Psychobiology of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (including physical and sexual abuse)

Hippocampal and Amygdalar Volumes in Dissociative Identity Disorder
Eric Vermetten, M.D., Ph.D., Christian Schmahl, M.D., Sanneke Lindner, M.Sc., Richard J. Loewenstein, M.D., and J. Douglas Bremner, M.D.
Am J Psychiatry 163:630-636, April 2006
doi: 10.1176/appi.ajp.163.4.630….

METHOD: The authors used magnetic resonance imaging to measure the volumes of the hippocampus and amygdala in 15 female patients with dissociative identity disorder and 23 female subjects without dissociative identity disorder or any other psychiatric disorder. The volumetric measurements for the two groups were compared.

RESULTS: Hippocampal volume was 19.2% smaller and amygdalar volume was 31.6% smaller in the patients with dissociative identity disorder, compared to the healthy subjects. The ratio of hippocampal volume to amygdalar volume was significantly different between groups.

CONCLUSIONS: The findings are consistent with the presence of smaller hippocampal and amygdalar volumes in patients with dissociative identity disorder, compared with healthy subjects.

http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/abstract/163/4/630

full text
“The patients with dissociative identity disorder in our study showed a 19.2% smaller hippocampal volume and a 31.6% smaller amygdalar volume, compared with the healthy subjects.”

http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/163/4/630

The neurobiological consequences of early stress and childhood maltreatment
Martin H. Teicher, Susan L. Andersena, Ann Polcarib, Carl M. Andersona, Carryl P. Navaltae, and Dennis M. Kima

Abstract
Early severe stress and maltreatment produces a cascade of neurobiological events that have the potential to cause enduring changes in brain development. These changes occur on multiple levels, from neurohumoral (especially the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal {HPA} axis) to structural and functional. The major structural consequences of early stress include reduced size of the mid-portions of the corpus callosum and attenuated development of the left neocortex, hippocampus, and amygdala.

Major functional consequences include increased electrical irritability in limbic structures and reduced functional activity of the cerebellar vermis. There are also gender differences in vulnerability and functional consequences. The neurobiological sequelae of early stress and maltreatment may play a significant role in the emergence of psychiatric disorders during development.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0149763403000071

Dr. Martin H. Teicher – Recent findings regarding brain development and childhood abuse/adversity

https://drteicher.wordpress.com/

https://drteicher.wordpress.com/2010/11/

Keynote: Pierre Janet memorial lecture ISSTD
Does Child Abuse Permanently Alter the Brain?
Martin H. Teicher, M.D., Ph.D. (PowerPoint)

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
New York Academy of Sciences June 1997
Volume 821 Psychobiology of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, The Pages xi–xv, 1–548

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nyas.1997.821.issue-1/issuetoc

includes:
Psychobiological Effects of Sexual Abuse : A Longitudinal Study (pages 150–159)
FRANK W. PUTNAM and PENELOPE K. TRICKETT
DOI: 10.1111/j.1749-6632.1997.tb48276.x

Preliminary Evidence for Abnormal Cortical Development in Physically and Sexually Abused Children Using EEG Coherence and MRI (pages 160–175)
MARTIN H. TEICHER, YUTAKA ITO, CAROL A. GLOD, SUSAN L. ANDERSEN, NATALIE DUMONT and ERIKA ACKERMAN
DOI: 10.1111/j.1749-6632.1997.tb48277.x

Implicit and Explicit Memory for Trauma-Related Information in PTSD (pages 219–224) RICHARD J. MCNALLY
DOI: 10.1111/j.1749-6632.1997.tb48281.x

Trauma, Dissociation, and Memory (pages 225–237)
DAVID SPIEGEL DOI: 10.1111/j.1749-6632.1997.tb48282.x

 

Post-Traumatic Childhood

Post-Traumatic Childhood By BESSEL A. van der KOLK
Op-Ed Contributor May 10, 2011 Brookline, Mass

describes graphic stories

….Rather than being subjected to bullets and bombs, children are victimized by those who are meant to care for them. These are children like a 3-year-old girl in Anchorage who was found by a police officer in her crib, hungry, underweight and covered in her own feces; an 11-year-old boy in New York City who has had violent outbursts since he was sexually molested, and whose terror of being alone makes him a subject of ridicule by his classmates; or a 14-year-old girl in Boston who set fire to a church and repeatedly attempted suicide after being beaten at home. The Pew Charitable Trusts estimates that the annual cost of childhood maltreatment like this is $103.8 billion.

Inspired by the work of the National Center for PTSD, Congress authorized the establishment of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network in 2001 to evaluate and develop treatments for traumatized children nationwide, with a budget that is now $40 million — about the cost of keeping 40 soldiers fighting in Afghanistan for one year.

President Obama’s 2012 budget has proposed a 70 percent reduction in financing for the network. That would be devastating for these children. The network has knitted together 130 clinics and universities in 38 states that specialize in helping traumatized children and adolescents. It has allowed the members to develop treatment programs and to hire and educate the staff to run them, enabling 322,000 children nationwide to get treatment from July 2002 to September 2009.

According to the latest figures available, 2.9 million children were mistreated in 2006, many of whom manifested serious behavioral and psychological problems. The network has started to document how trauma affects developing brains differently from those of adults exposed to wartime violence….

Most traumatized children now do not even receive a proper mental health assessment. Moreover, hundreds of thousands of them are numbed by powerful drugs that help control their “bad behavior,” but that don’t deal with the imprint of terror and helplessness on their minds and brains….

Untreated, traumatized children become failing adults who populate our jails and overwhelm our human services agencies. Cutting the development of effective treatments will produce many years of increasing costs and unquantifiable human misery.

Bessel A. van der Kolk, a professor of psychiatry at Boston University School of Medicine, is the founder and medical director of the Trauma Center at the Justice Resource Institute.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/11/opinion/11kolk.html

Survivorship Ritual Abuse Webinars, Abuse Rates Higher Among Deaf Children

Abuse Rates Higher Among Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Children Compared With Hearing Youths, Study Finds
ScienceDaily (Feb. 7, 2011)

A new study at Rochester Institute of Technology indicates that the incidence of maltreatment, including neglect and physical and sexual abuse, is more than 25 percent higher among deaf and hard-of-hearing children than among hearing youths.

The research also shows a direct correlation between childhood maltreatment and higher rates of negative cognition, depression and post-traumatic stress in adulthood.

The study, which was presented at the 2010 annual meeting of the Association of Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies, is one of the first to compare childhood maltreatment between deaf and hearing children….The group, which also included undergraduate psychology student Danielle Burnash and Gail Rothman-Marshall, associate professor of liberal studies at RIT’s National Technical Institute for the Deaf, conducted a survey of 425 college students, 317 hearing and 108 deaf, asking them to describe any maltreatment they had experienced prior to the age of 16.

Seventy-seven percent of deaf and hard-of-hearing respondents indicated experiencing some form of child maltreatment, compared with 49 percent among hearing respondents. In addition, respondents with more severe hearing loss indicated an increased rate and severity of maltreatment. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110118154733.htm

Survivorship Ritual Abuse Webinars
Saturday, February 19
noon Pacific Time
Alison Miller, Ph.D.
“Safety for Ritual Abuse and Mind Control Survivors.”

It is important for survivors to know whether or not they are presently safe from abusers. This Webinar will look at determining how safe you are, recognizing and understanding access programming (including reporting on disclosures), and maintaining or regaining physical safety. The BIG LIE that abusers know everything you do and say will be called into question.

Alison Miller is a psychologist licensed in British Columbia, Canada. She has been working with ritual abuse and mind control survivors since 1991. She is also an expert in parenting. She also presented a Webinar for Survivorship on July 24, 2010 on “Self-injury, Flashbacks, and Flooding as Programmed Responses, and How to Deal with Them.”

COST
Last year, Webinars cost $20.00. Now we have changed to a sliding scale so that each person can pay what they are able to. The scale starts at $50.00 and, in $5.00 increments, goes down to $0.00 (full scholarship). There is no longer any need to request a full or partial scholarship — you make the decision yourself. (Please factor in the cost of a telephone call to the East Coast.)

The PayPal button is under the description of the Webinar at
http://www.survivorship.org/webinars.html

REGISTRATION
Registration closes Thursday evening January 17. If you wish to pay by PayPal, go to
http://www.survivorship.org/webinars.html
Otherwise, send your check to:

SURVIVORSHIP
Family Justice Center
470 27th Street
Oakland, CA 94612

To reserve a space in the Webinar, e-mail Shamai at shamai@survivorship.org and give her this information:

1.Your name
2. The Webinar you wish to attend: ”Safety for Ritual Abuse and Mind Control Survivors” on February 19 and/or one of the Webinars listed below
3. Amount and method of payment  (check, PayPal, money order)
4. Your preferred e-mail address (so we can send you instructions)
5. The name you will be using for the Webinar. (This does not have to be your real name or your message board screen name.)

FUTURE WEBINARS
Saturday, April 9
Staci Sprout, LICSW, CSAT
“Authentic Sexuality after Extreme Sexual Abuse: Part II: Tools You Can Use.”
This Webinar follows up what was begun in the December Webinar. (If you were not there I recommend reviewing it on the Survivorship Website). We will take the concepts of sexual addiction/anorexia in the context of surviving extreme trauma to the next practical level: how to assess your current sexual health today, how to organize daily nurturing tasks to improve sexual self-esteem, what is the role of making love with yourself/masturbation, and what are your visions for a healthy tomorrow?

We will discuss sexuality in both general and specific terms.
Staci Sprout works as an individual group psychotherapist at Sexual Recovery Services in Washington state. (See www.sexualrecoveryservices.com for more information.). She is a Certified Sexual Addiction Therapist (CSAT). She is also a survivor of extreme trauma and will share “what’s worked” along her personal journey of recovery as part of the presentation. Caution will be taken to promote safety by not using explicit language or stories, though content at times may be triggering for survivors.

Saturday, March 26
Trish Fotheringham
“Inner Structures – Settle In and Get Comfortable.”
Trish was born into a female-only matriarchal healing cult and an ancient patriarchal family clan who were connected to a variety of organized crime groups, including a group of wealthy political elite and their child pornography rings and child sex slave trafficking network. She is a 50-year-old Canadian Survivor of extreme abuse and trauma that included MKUltra-style ritual abuse, torture, mind control, and experimentation.

Trish will share some of the ways she handled her many different implanted Inner structures and tell how she, as an adult, intentionally self-created more structures that served healing purposes. The Webinar will be designed for dialog and interaction rather than as a lecture

PAST WEBINARS
Survivorship members may listen to past Webinars in the members’ section. (For information on joining Survivorship, go to
http://www.survivorship.org/about/membership.html

Complete details on all our Webinars are at
http://www.survivorship.org/webinars.html