Now imagine you hit that pothole in an old beater . Your teeth rattle in your skull . A grocery bag falls over in the back , spilling eggs onto the floor . A hubcap spins off into the gutter . As you return to the store to buy more eggs , your steering wheel pulls more to the left than ever — you really need new shocks now . You think about your maxed-out credit card . You ’ ll be cursing that busted bit of pavement for months .
Nicole Nugent , PhD , says people , like cars , have shock absorbers . But their effectiveness depends on the lives we ’ ve lived . The lucky ones who experience little misfortune or loss are usually able to handle life ’ s bumps , while those who ’ ve suffered traumatic or stressful events — especially at a young age — may have a harder time coping with , and recovering from , even small mishaps .
“ Early trauma … can break your shock absorber ,” says Nugent , an associate professor of psychiatry and human behavior and of emergency medicine at Brown . “ You hit that bump . You feel it more . You bounce more frequently . And it ’ s harder to return to baseline .”
That ’ s because early-life stress may change us at the molecular level . Studies associate childhood trauma and adversity with cellular aging , elevated stress hormones and inflammation , a weakened immune response , and disrupted brain development . The impacts of those biological changes can be far reaching , from an inability to form relationships or pay attention in school , to risky behaviors like drug use and unprotected sex , to social problems like crime and poverty , to diabetes and cardiovascular disease , psychiatric disorders , and early death .
And the consequences of trauma can live on in the next generation , adds Audrey Tyrka , MD , PhD , a professor of psychiatry and human behavior , as a mother ’ s stress may affect not only fetal development but her ability to raise her child .
“ Oftentimes , the modeling that people have received is poor ,” she said in a lecture in 2019 . Yet society relies on parents to model good parenting : “ that ’ s how we learn to become good parents ourselves .” It ’ s a heartbreaking cycle .
But not an unbreakable one . Tyrka , Nugent , and their colleagues Laura Stroud , PhD , and Stephanie Parade , PhD , are looking for genetic markers that may forecast risk and disease and working to understand how people cope and adapt . If they can pinpoint , for example , a molecular change in a fetus triggered by a mom ’ s stressed environment , that may suggest a way to protect the child , says Stroud , a professor of psychiatry and human behavior .
“ That ’ s the more hopeful pathway ,” Stroud says . “ The thing that ’ s always surprising to me is how resilient humans are . … Parenting interventions have been extremely successful .”
The National Institutes of Health gave their work a big endorsement last fall , with a five-year , $ 11.1 million grant to form the Stress , Trauma , and Resilience ( STAR ) Center of Biomedical Research Excellence . Based at The Miriam Hospital , the center has formed partnerships with researchers at Butler and other area hospitals .
Critically , STAR ’ s mission goes beyond the lab . The researchers collaborate with community organizations and state agencies to design and implement programs that address a range of adverse life events , from violence and neglect to substance use and suicide , from pregnancy to birth to adulthood . Furthermore , Parade says , many programs “ meet families where they ’ re at ”— in their homes .
“ It ’ s been nice having that additional interdisciplinary approach where [ researchers and external agencies ] bring our pieces together to tackle questions in a rigorous way ,” says Parade , an associate professor of psychiatry and human behavior . Plus home-based programs improve access : “ If families don ’ t have a car , how can we expect them to get to an appointment regularly ? Or if they need to prioritize money for food versus gas for the car , again , what ’ s going to be the priority ?” she says .
During presentations , Tyrka sometimes shows a cartoon of Uncle Sam chiding us to “ Pull yourself up by your bootstraps !” “ You can ’ t just pick yourself up by your bootstraps and move on if this has been baked into these biological and cognitive processes ,” Tyrka says . “ There ’ s a lot of work that needs to be done . It ’ s what we really need to do as a society , because social disparities and inadequate support for families have created this risk .”
ENCODING ADVERSITY
From an evolutionary perspective , a stress response is a good thing . If you ’ re being chased by a tiger , your body releases adrenaline and cortisol to help you flee . Pulse and blood pressure go up . Glucose floods the bloodstream . Energy is temporarily diverted to the muscles and brain , and away from processes like digestion , growth , and reproduction . Once the danger is passed , you return to baseline .
But not if your body is constantly responding to stressful events . This is what happens to some children who are abused or neglected ,
12 HEALTH DISCOVERIES l WINTER 2022