Brain Study – Childhood Sexual Abuse Linked To Drug Use

The physiological link between sexual abuse and drug use has tentatively been found.

It has long been widely accepted that early childhood sexual abuse can predispose an individual to later substance abuse. But how?

Now, a new study combining brain imaging with information gathered from a questionnaire assessing symptoms of subjective distress and discomfort provides evidence of a neuroanatomical mechanism by which early childhood trauma could lead to drug abuse or other behavioral problems.

In the study, published in the January [2002] issue of Psychoneuroendocrinology, Carl Anderson, PhD., and colleagues at McLean Hospital, in Belmont, Mass., found that repeated sexual abuse in childhood may be correlated with changes in blood flow and function in a key region of the cerebellum, known as the cerebellar vermis.

At the same time, they found that those changes were significantly related to scores on a questionnaire used to rate symptoms of irritability in the limbic system of the brain, known to be involved in regulation of emotions, attention, and judgment.

This study was published in January 2002, so the information has been available for about ten years. Funny that it is not common knowledge by now.

The study was small (24 people total – 8 abused kids and 16 controls) so the findings are not definitive. But they correlate well with the findings of Dr. Lonnie Shavelson detailed in his book Heroin. And what did Dr. Shavelson find?

About 70% of female heroin users were sexually abused as children.

Is it possible to get the government to stop further abusing abused kids? Or is a modicum of morality and human kindness too much to ask from our government? Heck is it too much to ask from the people supporting Drug Prohibition? In my experience so far the answer is YES. It is too much to ask from them.

Say. Isn’t America supposed to be a Christian Country? Yes it is. In the same way the Inquisition was a Christian operation. Or the way Martin Luther hated Jews. Ya gotta love Christian Morality. And them Christians are so proud of it. Isn’t it time for another Reformation or something? Could we please avoid the Jew hatred this time? How about ending all hatred? You know “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” Pardon me but isn’t that a Jewish concept? Yes it is.

OTOH some Christians get it.

H/T Drug Policy Forum Of Texas

Cross Posted at Power and Control