How Childhood Trauma Affects Health

This week I watched a TED Talks video from Nadine Burke Harris, and the topic is how childhood trauma affects health throughout their whole lifetime. In this video, Dr. Harris talks about how childhood trauma can cause a numerous amount of health issues such as affecting brain development, hormonal systems, and immune system. She touches on the many different outlets that teens turn to or use to eliminate the pain they suffered as a child. Dr. Harris explains in the video that trauma like a parent being incarcerated or a child being abused is enough to alter their brain development. When the brain is altered many of the important parts of the brain that are used to function become different. For example, Dr. Harris explains that trauma affects the prefrontal cortex which plays a major part in learning, impulse control, and executive function. Also, she talked about the Nucleus Accumbens in the brain that control the pleasure and reward center that involves substance dependence. When it comes to physical health & childhood trauma the situation gets worst. Dr. Vince Felitti conducted at study called Adverse Childhood Experiences Study. In this study, about 17,500 adults were asked about different examples of trauma that they might have been exposed to as a child.
When this part is altered the person is more likely to engage in risky behavior often causing irrational decisions. With this being said yes their risky behaviors can cause all of those negative health issues; however, the reason behind them engaging in those risky behaviors is due to childhood trauma. I like to think of this situation as a domino effect, meaning when the first domino falls all the others come falling down. When a child is exposed to trauma it alters their brain, next they begin to involve themselves in risky behavior, and this results in health