Chronic Early Trauma and its Long-Term Effects

One in five children world-wide is exposed to trauma related to war, violence, armed conflict, tribal or ethnic strife, or mass immigration (UNICEF, 2018). Since 2004, we follow children living in frontline neighborhoods near the Gaza border and exposed to chronic and unpredictable war-related trauma.  We use psychiatric evaluation, behavior observations, hormonal analysis, brain imaging, and microbiome assessment toward two goals: describe the long-term effects of chronic trauma exposure and pinpoint markers of resilience. Our research on resilience is informed by our conceptual model on What is Resilience?  An Affiliative Neuroscience Approach

Effects of early and chronic trauma exposure: Trauma exposure increases prevalence of psychiatric disorders in infants, children and youth and rates increase with age.  Exposed children show disruptions in oxytocin, stress, and immune systems, brain maturation, empathic neural and behavioral response, emotion regulation, executive functions, and microbiome composition.

Markers of resilience: While more trauma-exposed children exhibit psychopathology, some are more resilient.  Resilience links with sensitive and containing parenting, maternal mental health, and greater functionality of systems implicated in neurobiological plasticity.  Our findings define several age-related, system-specific mechanisms of resilience.