New research by Stanford University has found that the hippocampus seems smaller and “withered” in children who suffered severe physical or emotional stress in their youth.
The suggestion is that this less active hippocampus leaves children less able to deal with stress and at a higher risk of suffering from anxiety.
A physical cause of anxiety has far reaching consequences for the cure vs manage debate. Those who believe that anxiety disorders, panic attacks and phobias have largely emotional causes are able to hold out much more hope for a complete recovery than those that believe anxiety is a physical/chemical/genetic phenomena we have to live with just like hair colour. Assuming that the hippocampus can not be revitalized, this research suggests that people who suffer from disorders caused by childhood stress may only ever be able to manage their symptoms, as opposed to finding true release.
It should be stressed that the subjects in the Stanford research had acquired PTSD “as a result of physical, emotional or sexual abuse, witnessing violence or experiencing lasting separation and loss.”
It should also be stressed that no physical or genetic causes of anxiety disorders have been proven. More to the point, every anxiety sufferer has a different story with different causes. A gene might make you more susceptible to anxiety, but it does not make the anxiety a forgone conclusion. People do recover from anxiety disorders fully. So one should not be disheartened by the idea of there, in some cases, being concrete causes.
Much more research is needed before we can know the truth about how stress effects the hippocampus. It has already been suggested by other leading researchers that the withered hippocampus might be a cause of stress, rather than a result of it.
