hey seor and welcome back to another video before we start we'd like to give you a huge thanks for all of the love and support that you've given us pyo's mission is to make psychology more accessible to everyone and you help us do that now let's continue whether you have experienced physical abuse an unstable family or a toxic environment trauma has a way of shaking up our world which may leave us with lasting pain but unlike physical wounds that are visible the Mental effects of trauma are not always obvious so today we want to explore
the different ways that trauma affects the brain amydala A wise man once said it's not the size that matters it's how you use it and that's certainly the case for the amigdala despite its size this small almond-shaped structure plays a huge role in the brain in particular it regulates our emotional responses which include fear anxiety and sadness and when functioning properly it acts as the brain's alarm system but what happens in the amydala of someone with trauma while in most cases of PTSD the amydala undergos hyperactivity a 2014 study published in Social Neuroscience Journal found
an interesting New Perspective in this study the researchers examined the response of 42 firsttime mothers and how they reacted to the happy and sad faces of their infants in the mothers who had unresolved trauma their amydala activated less than mothers who didn't suffer from trauma they believed this to be an indication of the mother's disengagement from their infants and that can be linked to disrupted maternal caregiving while this doesn't mean that mothers with trauma lack care about their infants it can mean that trauma may affect our amydala which can make us less responsive to others
distress hippocampus a major part of our brain the hippocampus plays an important role in learning and memory if it does its job well the hippocampus helps you learn the formulas for that upcoming math test or remember your way through a complex maze but it turns out the trauma also has very very serious effect on the hippoc campus in February 2006 a coal mine gas explosion occurred in the shanki province of China which left the surviving coal miners with PTSD 7 years later 24 of the 30 survivors with PTSD were recruited to undergo an fmri along
with 25 coal miners without PTSD the study was later published by the public library of science with striking findings researchers found that the coal miners with PTSD had a smaller hippocampus than the control group since a smaller hippocampus is associated with Alzheimer's disease depression and stress you can say that these mental disorders may be linked to trauma prefrontal cortex if the amydala is the brain's alarm system the prefrontal cortex decides how to react to the signals sent by the amydala when in distress the amydala sends a signal of threat or stress in the environment while
the prefrontal cortex assesses the situation and tries to make it feel less scary they work together to keep us safe and out of danger while helping us to differentiate between real danger or a false alarm but of course trauma has a way of disrupting this delicate system a 2006 paper by Dr James Douglas Bremer writes that patients with PTSD showed signs of smaller hippocampus hyperactive amydala and decreased prefrontal cortex activity simply put a brain under trauma irregularly sends distress signals while your judgment system isn't able to tell if it's a real danger or not this
could mean that people with trauma could be under stress while having a hard time judging if the situation is actually dangerous or not so what can we do trauma is a serious mental condition and should not be taken lightly but how can we address it an article by Frontiers in behavioral Neuroscience strongly recommends that you should seek the help of trauma focused Healthcare professionals if you suspect that you're suffering from trauma this means that the therapy should directly address memories or thoughts related to the traumatic event these types of therapy are prolonged exposure therapy cognitive
processing therapy and Trauma focused cognitive behavioral therapy each of these types of therapy have been shown to be effective when working with trauma patients because they deal directly with the traumatic event with the right treatment and resources we can overcome the negative effect of trauma to lead a happy healthier life so don't give up we hope that the information provided in this video will encourage you to seek help and that you'll find the resources you need to help you recover here's the next chapter in our ongoing psych too stor series that we've been putting our
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