The Brain's Response

A key issue in understanding altered brain development in children who have been abused is that the way in which their brains develop is often a very adaptive response to their negative environment, but it is maladaptive in other environments.If a child lives in a threatening, chaotic world, his brain will be hyper-alert for danger. But if this environment persists, and the child’s brain is focused on developing and strengthening its strategies for survival, other strategies may not develop as fully.

When a child is exposed to chronic, traumatic stress, his brain sensitizes the pathways for the fear response and literally creates memories such that his fear response becomes almost automatic; he doesn’t really think about it. This is called a state of “hyper-arousal.” The regions of the brain involved in the hyper-arousal response are always “on,” and because of this, the child may frequently experience hyperactivity, anxiety, impulse control issues, and sleep problems.

While hyper-arousal is more common in older children and males, dissociation is more common in younger children and in females — children who often feel or are immobile or powerless. Just as children in a state of hyper-arousal have sensitized neural pathways controlling their response to a threatening environment, children in a state of dissociation have sensitized neural pathways that elicit a different response. A child in a dissociative state, when presented with a threat, may “freeze,”
both physically and cognitively. When an adult asks or tells them to do something, they don’t respond. If the adult becomes angry and more threatening, the child becomes even more anxious and moves further into full dissociation.