A small study of people who experienced the devastating 2011 earthquake in Japan shows that although traumatic events can shrink parts of the brain, some of those regions can rebound once a person's self-esteem returns.
"Higher self-esteem is one of the most important traits of resilience in the context of stressful life events," said study author Atsushi Sekiguchi, who noted that these latest findings also illustrate that brain changes are dynamic and fluid over time.
Sekiguchi's prior research had already demonstrated that people with lower self-esteem following a traumatic event are likely to experience a quick, short-term drop in the size of their orbitofrontal cortex and hippocampus. The first brain region is involved in decision-making and emotions, while the second area is involved in memory.
...Less hopeful were further observations regarding a part of the brain known as the hippocampus. That region had also decreased in size right after the earthquake, in conjunction with the onset of both depression and anxiety.
But while over the course of the following year depression and anxiety levels neither fell nor rose, the hippocampus continued to shrink.
The team said more research is needed to continue to monitor how brain structure changes play out further down the road.
Full text in Molecular Psychiatry, April 29 online --Ā Resilience after 3/11: structural brain changes 1 year after the Japanese earthquake
Comments (0)