Understanding the Brain-Body Connection:�How Trauma Impacts Actions

Presented by: Winston Kennedy, PT, DPT, MPH, PhD

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Nervous system

• What are the main parts of the nervous system?

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• What does the nervous system do?

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• The nervous system uses cells (neurons) to send messages all over the body.

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• Different kinds of neurons send different signals.
• Motor neurons tell your muscles to move.
• Sensory neurons take information from your senses and send signals to your brain.
• Other types of neurons control the things your body does automatically, like breathing, shivering, having a regular heartbeat and digesting food.

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• Your nervous system affects every aspect of your health, including your:
• Thoughts, memory, learning, and feelings.
• Movements, such as balance and coordination.
• Senses, including how your brain interprets what you see, hear, taste, touch and feel.
• Sleep, healing and aging.
• Heartbeat and breathing patterns.
• Digestion, as well as how hungry and thirsty you feel.
• Body processes, such as puberty.
• Response to stressful situations.

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• What do you think impacts how the nervous system develops?

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Childhood Trauma and Health

Child Development

• How the brain grows is strongly affected by childhood experiences with other people and the world.
• Children depend on parents, family members, and other caregivers as their first teachers to develop the right skills to become independent and lead healthy and successful lives.
• Children grow and learn best in a safe environment where they are protected from neglect and from extreme or chronic stress with plenty of opportunities to play and explore.
• Genetics also play a role in nervous system development

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• What are some examples of things that children may experience that we would identify as stressors?

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Childhood Stress

• Childhood trauma is usually measured by stress
• There are generally 3 of stress in young children

• Positive stress: Necessary and promotes resilience, or the ability to function competently under threat. Such stress arises from brief, mild to moderate stressful experiences, buffered by the presence of a caring adult who can help the child cope with the stressor.

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• Tolerable Stress: Tolerable stress comes from adverse experiences that are more intense in nature but short-lived and can usually be overcome. Some examples of tolerable stressors are family disruptions, accidents or the death of a loved one.

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• Toxic stress: Extreme, long-lasting stress in the absence of supportive relationships to buffer the effects of a heightened stress response can produce damage and weakening of bodily and brain systems, which can lead to diminished physical and mental health throughout a person’s lifetime.

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Negative Outcomes of Childhood Trauma

• What do you think is the result of consistent childhood toxic stress?

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Stress and Health Outcomes

• When stress builds up in early childhood, neurobiological factors are affected
• High levels of the stress hormone cortisol can reduce the size of the hippocampus and affect a child’s memory abilities.
• Stress hormones can also reduce immunity to disease.
• If the brain is exposed to long periods of severe stress, it can develop a low threshold, making a child hypersensitive to stress in the future.

More Stress and Health Outcomes

• With chronic toxic stress, children undergo long term hyper-arousal of brain stem activity.
• This includes an increase in heart rate, blood pressure, and arousal states. These children may experience a change in brain chemistry, which leads to hyperactivity and anxiety.
• Physical conditions include cardiovascular problems, skin conditions, susceptibility to viruses, headaches, or stomach aches in young children.
• Emotionally, children may become anxious or depressed, violent, or feel overwhelmed. Socially, they may become withdrawn and act out towards others, or develop new behavioral ticks such as biting nails or picking at skin.

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• What happens when a child is removed from the toxic stressful situation?

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Nervous system dysregulation

Reactions and Trauma

• Trauma can affect one’s beliefs about the future via loss of hope, limited expectations about life, fear that life will end abruptly or early, or anticipation that normal life events won’t occur (e.g., access to education, ability to have a significant and committed relationship, good opportunities for work).
• Delayed or immediate; and can be:
• Emotional
• Physical
• Cognitive
• Behavioral
• Existential

Emotional Reactions

Physical Reactions

Cognitive Reactions

Behavioral Reactions

Existential Reactions

Impulsivity and Emotional Dysregulation

• Emotion dysregulation is a multi-faceted construct involving:
• (a) a lack of awareness, understanding, and acceptance of emotions;
• (b) the inability to control behaviors when experiencing emotional distress;
• (c) lack of access to adaptive strategies for modulating the duration and/or intensity of aversive emotional experiences;
• (d) an unwillingness to experience emotional distress as part of pursuing meaningful activities in life

• What are the negative consequences of impulsivity in a high stressful situation?

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Bringing it all together

• Nervous system regulates your body both consciously and subconsciously
• Early childhood impacts the regulation of the nervous system
• Consistent Stress/trauma without social support in childhood can produce negative physical, emotional, social and cognitive health outcomes due to nervous system dysregulation
• As you grow older the health outcomes associated with nervous system dysregulation continues impacting life trajectory
• Beliefs systems, and actions can be shaped by trauma and can drive both negative and positive reactions to life events