Well-being : the foundations of hedonic psychology

How we raise young children is one of today's most highly personalized and sharply politicized issues, in part because each of us can claim some level of "expertise." The debate has intensified as discoveries about our development-in the womb and in the first months and years-have reached the popular media. How can we use our burgeoning knowledge to assure the well-being of all young children, for their own sake as well as for the sake of our nation? Drawing from new findings, this book presents important conclusions about nature-versus-nurture, the impact of being born into a working family, the effect of politics on programs for children, the costs and benefits of intervention, and other issues. The committee issues a series of challenges to decision makers regarding the quality of child care, issues of racial and ethnic diversity, the integration of children's cognitive and emotional development, and more. Authoritative yet accessible, From Neurons to Neighborhoods presents the evidence about "brain wiring" and how kids learn to speak, think, and regulate their behavior. It examines the effect of the climate-family, child care, community-within which the child grows.

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From Neurons to Neighborhoods: The Science of Early Childhood Development

Chronic exposure to stress hormones, whether it occurs during the prenatal period, infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood or aging, has an impact on brain structures involved in cognition and mental health. However, the specific effects on the brain, behaviour and cognition emerge as a function of the timing and the duration of the exposure, and some also depend on the interaction between gene effects and previous exposure to environmental adversity. Advances in animal and human studies have made it possible to synthesize these findings, and in this Review a model is developed to explain why different disorders emerge in individuals exposed to stress at different times in their lives.

Effects of stress throughout the lifespan on the brain, behaviour and cognition

Childhood maltreatment has been linked to a variety of changes in brain structure and function and stress–responsive neurobiological systems. Epidemiological studies have documented the impact of childhood maltreatment on health and emotional well–being. After a brief review of the neurobiology of childhood trauma, we use the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study as an epidemiological “case example” of the convergence between epidemiologic and neurobiological evidence of the effects of childhood trauma. The ACE Study included 17,337 adult HMO members and assessed 8 adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) including abuse, witnessing domestic violence, and serious household dysfunction. We used the number of ACEs (ACE score) as a measure of cumulative childhood stress and hypothesized a "doseresponse" relationship of the ACE score to 18 selected outcomes and to the total number of these outcomes (comorbidity). Based upon logistic regression analysis, the risk of every outcome in the affective, somatic, substance abuse, memory, sexual,and aggressionrelated domains increased in a graded fashion as the ACE score increased (P <0.001). The mean number of comorbid outcomes tripled across the range of the ACE score. The graded relationship of the ACE score to 18 different outcomes in multiple domains theoretically parallels the cumulative exposure of the developing brain to the stress response with resulting impairment in multiple brain structures and functions.

https://traumasensitiveschools.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Anda-Article-Enduring-Effects-of-Abuse.pdf

The enduring effects of abuse and related adverse experiences in childhood: A convergence of evidence from neurobiology and epidemiology

https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(08)61706-7.pdf

Burden and consequences of child maltreatment in high-income countries

Developmental traumatology part II: brain development ∗

Developmental traumatology part I: biological stress systems

Brain development during childhood and adolescence is characterized by both progressive myelination and regressive pruning processes. However, sex differences in brain maturation remain poorly understood. Magnetic resonance imaging was used to examine the relationships between age and sex with cerebral gray and white matter volumes and corpus callosal areas in 118 healthy children and adolescents (61 males and 57 females), aged 6-17 years. Gender groups were similar on measures of age, handedness, socioeconomic status and Full Scale IQ. Significant age-related reductions in cerebral gray and increases in white matter volumes and corpus callosal areas were evident, while intracranial and cerebral volumes did not change significantly. Significant sex by age interactions were seen for cerebral gray and white matter volumes and corpus callosal areas. Specifically, males had more prominent age-related gray matter decreases and white matter volume and corpus callosal area increases compared with females. While these data are from a cross-sectional sample and need to be replicated in a longitudinal study, the findings suggest that there are age-related sex differences in brain maturational processes. The study of age-related sex differences in cerebral pruning and myelination may aid in understanding the mechanism of several developmental neuropsychiatric disorders.

/pdf/sex-differences-in-brain-maturation-during-childhood-and-4u1bdgngri.pdf

Sex Differences in Brain Maturation during Childhood and Adolescence

Brain structures in pediatric maltreatment-related posttraumatic stress disorder: a sociodemographically matched study

https://www.childpsych.theclinics.com/article/S1056-4993(14)00003-0/pdf

Michael D. De Bellis

Papers

Developmental traumatology part II: brain development ∗

Developmental traumatology part I: biological stress systems

Sex Differences in Brain Maturation during Childhood and Adolescence

Brain structures in pediatric maltreatment-related posttraumatic stress disorder: a sociodemographically matched study

The Biological Effects of Childhood Trauma