A sick experience makes for a sick mind
A current book-in-progress is Dr. David Perlmutter’s ”Power Up Your Brain: The Neuroscience of Enlightenment.” After hearing Dr. Perlmutter speak at a medical conference this month, I fished out this book which initially put me off a bit with the new-agey moniker, chakra references and the like. It turns out that the book is thoughtfully written and there’s plenty of good science in it.
I like hearing different takes on our old friend, the hippocampus, the so-called “gateway to memory” brain structure long implanted by evolution. This one took me by surprise:
We now understand that the hippocampus set point that modulates the adrenal’s production of cortisol is programmed very early in life. Thus, trauma at a young age increases the hippocampus’s sensitivity to cortisol. And this sets the stage for an every-increasing decline in hippocampal function in adulthood, which inhibits our ability to respond to situations in novel ways.
I feel nothing but frustrated outrage over the Penn State scandal and I don’t buy the notion that any of these football coaches are “fallen heroes” nor that the hushing-up of such abuse happened because of “job pressures to stay quiet.” OH please. So now the hapless young victims not only pay with immediate emotional, physical costs that we can only imagine. Indeed, their abilities to think, learn and adapt go hurting for a lifetime.
Makes me sick.
