https://irishroversbooks.wordpress.com/2012/02/23/lest-we-forget/
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What changes occur in the brain in childhood trauma? What are their effects?
• Reduced activity in Broca’s area (this is the area for speech). This can make it difficult to talk about trauma and describe it with detail (Hull, 2002). This is additional to trauma which is pre-verbal.
I have trauma that is pre verbal, it has a ghostly feel. It took years of meditating to be able to share my trauma with others.
• The hippocampus becomes smaller and its structure is interrupted (Wilson et al., 2011; McCrory et al, 2010). This can affect attention, learning and memory (Hedges and Woon, 2011; Pechtel and Pizzagalli, 2011).
Nothing has brought my memory back intact, many trauma memories are unfinished and confusing, incomplete and choppy.
• The corpus collosum which connects the left and right sides of the brain, is reduced. This prevents the two sides of the brain working in a coordinated way (Wilson et al., 2011)
Experienced meditators have a wider and thicker corpus collosum.
• Changes to amygdala function (Wilson et al., 2011; Pechtel and Pizzagalli, 2011). This can make a person more likely to react to triggers, especially emotional ones. People can experience emotional extremes and struggle to regulate their emotions.
My meditation practice calmed my amygdala and brought some balance. I could take the cortisol and adrenaline away with long deep,focused breaths.
• Reduced activity in different parts of the cortex- frontal lobes (McCrory et al, 2012). This can mean a survival response/s is triggered in absence of danger (Ali, et al., 2011).
Neuroscientists say meditation repairs the damage trauma does to the left prefrontal cortex.
• Changes in ‘reward pathways’. This can mean that survivors anticipate less pleasure from different activities, and may appear less motivated (Pechtel and Pizzagalli,)
I have been extremely motivated to heal. It’s just not an appearance of less pleasure, we serious abused kids suffer throughout life. Childhood trauma never totally leaves our being..
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PTSD - A Way Out.com 