Early-life stress leaves a 'scar' inside brain cells

30 pointsposted 9 hours ago
by gmays
(medicine.washu.edu)

8 Comments

redrix

4 hours ago

I remember having it drilled into me in High School that unless you did well on your finals:

1. You wouldn’t get the score you needed to get into a good University and/or accepted into the course you wanted. 2. If you didn’t get into that course, you wouldn’t be able to do <x> for a career. 3. If you DID get into the course you wanted, it needed to be at a top University (which of course required an even higher entry score) or else you’d find it hard to get a job afterwards.

Imagine all of that stress: Telling 16-18 year olds that unless you ace your tests, you won’t be able to do what you want to in life.

NewJazz

3 hours ago

I remember having it drilled into me in high school that I was procrastinating school work while at my mom's to avoid spending time with my dad and I was faking my sobbing for sympathy and I was a horrible person who was lucky to have a dad as good as I had and how I keep doing the same things wrong and I am a smartass prick who doesn't care about anyone but myself.

12-14 was rough.

School work stress was quite tame by comparison. At least your teachers don't scream at you for hours until you forget why.

golly_ned

2 hours ago

I don't think that's what they mean by 'early-life'.

leoh

an hour ago

I remember having this in middle school, it was a nightmare and majorly fucked me up

ls612

2 hours ago

In mice.

leoh

an hour ago

"In mice" is the right caveat for outcomes and the wrong one for mechanisms. Nobody’s selling you a drug here--they’re describing a chromatin change, and that’s the part rodents are actually good for.

The alternative study design is randomizing infants to early-life stress and biopsying their hippocampi at 30. Committee’s still reviewing it.

nemosaltat

4 hours ago

When our Little, Stuart falls down we don’t even know what he remembers. [in mice]

jdw64

an hour ago

Then my brain must be full of scars.