A brand new study from researchers at Medical University of South Carolina explains at least one way the brain changes in adults who have experienced PTSD or sexual abuse.
In this particular cohort, researchers found “reduced brain connectivity in the attention systems known as the ventral and dorsal attention network.”
If you’re into the neuroscience of it, you can read more about the circuitry here, but this explains why victims in this group have such difficulty with focus, and how severely their trauma can impact their lives.
Lead author, Dr. Kathleen Crum, explains:
“Individuals with PTSD have difficulty disengaging attention from threat-related cues, including cues that remind them of their traumatic experiences,” explained Crum. “Individuals with PTSD may also tend to interpret neutral cues as threat-related. Collectively, these problems affect their ability to direct their attention to the task at hand in their everyday lives.”
One of my favorite books is by the acclaimed neuroscientist and Christian, Dr. Matthew Stanford, Grace for the Afflicted.
Protestant Work Ethic American Christians are, unfortunately, very prone to the mentality of, “Oh, shake it off, work it off, stop playing the victim, and just move on with your life.”
But for those who’ve experienced abuse, those with PTSD, those with other mental health challenges — it’s not a matter of “willpower.”
Our brains are different.
We would never tell someone in a wheelchair, “Oh, just get up off that thing!”
So why would we tell that to someone who’s experienced terrible abuse, or who has PTSD? Or any other mental health challenge?
That would be just cruel.
And unfortunately, countless Christians have gotten that treatment from churches.
A Lifeway Study found that 25% of Christians with mental health challenges have switched churches because they felt so unwelcome in their current one.
In his book, Grace for the Afflicted, Dr. Stanford (read our interview here) goes through major mental health conditions, explains what’s going on in the brain, and gently prods the Christian community to show the kindness and empathy we often lack.
Now, back to the study and the hopeful news.
The researchers found that the hormone, oxytocin, increases brain connectivity in those systems damaged by the abuse and thus may be a way of helping treat survivors of abuse and those with PTSD.
More research is needed, but this is yet another invitation for all of us to show what Christians should really be — advocates for the hurting, graceful towards the struggling, and always mindful that what right do we have to boast about anything?
What right do we have to tell someone to “shake it off” when every “good thing” we’ve ever experienced or “done” is not from us? If someone has, in the context of this study, a brain with “normal” brain connectivity in these regions, did they create it? If someone had a spectacular childhood, did they pick their home?
Every good thing is a gift, and we should be the most humble and kind of all people, because our theology rests on it.
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