Biological Resilience

The article, Unbroken: what makes some people more resilient than others, uses the example of Louis Zamperini as shown in the movie, Unbroken, to examine the role of resilience in the ability to recover after a traumatic event. Written by David Cox for The Guardian, the article discusses current research on resilience, and explains how it can be used to treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Many people experience a severe trauma in their lives, but only a few go on to develop PTSD. For a long time, the focus has been on what makes people more susceptible to developing PTSD. A newer approach to studying stress disorders, as the article establishes, is the study of resilience. Using the example of Louis Zamperini, the article describes an interdisciplinary approach to studying resilience including biological, social, and lifestyle factors.

An individual with a strong social support before and after the traumatic event is likely to have a positive adjustment after the trauma than an individual who has a poor connection and attachment with their social circle. Some studies on heritability of the disorder shows a small hereditary component that predisposes a person to the disorder contributes to increase their probability of exposure to trauma. “For example a hereditary deficit in problem-solving capacity may contribute to higher levels of exposure to potentially traumatic stressors and lower levels of resources to promote recovery following exposure” (Reyes, Elhai, & Ford, p. 259).

Childhood maltreatment is a prevalent problem through out the world. As a child grows and matures the brain continues to develop according its experiences. During this time sensitive periods of development for different areas of the brain. A few areas that are of interest are the stress-influenced areas, which are at an increased risk for developmental problems when exposed to maltreatment. The extra stress from such exposures can influence abnormalities throughout the brain, which have been linked to structure changes with in the corpus callosum, anterior cingulate, dorsolateral prefrontal, orbitofrontal cortex, and hippocampus, amygdala, and cerebellum, as well as changes to stress related hormone systems. These structural changes are associated with an increased risk of psychopathology and other life long educational and physiological risk.

“Resilience: The Biology of Stress and Science of Hope” (2016), is a documentary corelating adverse childhood events (ACE) and chronic medical condition like heart disease and diabetes (Resilience trailer, 2016). Childhood trauma and toxic stress changes a person physically and emotionally (Lee, 2016). On November 29, 2017, I had the pleasure of attending a showing of the film ‘Resilience’ and the panel discussion which followed. The panel consisted of five community leaders discussing the impact of ACEs and the work being done to address the problem. The panel included: Joan Caley MS, ARNP-CNS, CNL, NEA, BC of ACES Action Coalition, Jill McGillis of Clark County Juvenile Justice, Michelle Welton outreach manager for Catholic Charities Refugee Services Program Support, Jonathan Weedman CCTP, LPC the director of operations population health partnerships for Care Oregon, and Sandy Mathenson EdD director of social –emotional learning for Battle Ground Public Schools. The speakers received about fifteen minutes to discuss their respective work and agencies. In this brief review, I will summarize the discussion and deliberate the effectiveness of the presentation method.

It is a well known fact that childhood abuse can increase the risk of developing PTSD later in life, (Zhao, 2013) but how does this correlate to veterans? In the Ohio National Guard Study of Risk and Resilience, Israel Liberzon found that a gene known as ADRB2 and childhood adversity could lead to the development of PTSD after combat exposure (Liberzon, 2014). In addition to this, twin studies also suggest that genetics could play an important role in resilience to PTSD. In recent years Dr. Resseler and his colleges research has shown that different genes linked with fear and stress response are associated with abnormalities in the amygdala and hippocampus. These areas help control the fear response, so the different genes could also be associated with a greater risk of developing posttraumatic stress disorder. They’ve also done studies that show estrogen could mean that women have a higher risk of developing PTSD than men (Resseler, 2014). This could be why nearly 20% of females veterans involved in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have posttraumatic stress disorder (Lee,

Healy, M. (2012) Study identifies genes linked to post-traumatic stress disorder. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved from http://articles.latimes.com/2012/apr/04/health/la-he-ptsd-genes-20120404

Despite these concurring viewpoints, there are fundamental differences between these perspectives. The medical/disease perspective focuses on the costs of early stressful experiences, asserting that exposure to early life adversity disrupts normal development, causing dysregulations in biological systems (Ellis & Del Giudice, 2014). As outlined by Del Giudice and Ellis (2016), research from this perspective generally focuses on unfavorable health outcomes associated with early stress exposure, such as reduced performance on intelligence tests and greater prevalence of psychopathology. The evolutionary perspective, in contrast, extends the understanding of epigenetically-based developmental processes by examining the benefits of stress responsivity and its orchestration of adaptive developmental patterns. According to the ACM, organisms have calibrated their systems via environmental cues to adapt physiological and behavioral systems to their current and future environments (Del Giudice & Ellis, 2016). Therefore, despite potential impairments/costs, there should also be adaptations; for example, as discussed by Ellis & Del Giudice (2014), adolescents

The processes by which the effects of stress and trauma experienced in one generation can be transmitted to the subsequent generations involves multiple factors and intersecting pathways (Bombay, Anisman, & Matheson, 2009, 2014; Bowers & Yehuda, 2016; Dekel & Goldblatt, 2008). It is known that adverse experiences in childhood and adulthood may influence the risk for various health and social outcomes in offspring of those who encountered the stressor or trauma directly (Bombay et al., 2009, 2014; Bowers & Yehuda, 2016; Dekel & Goldblatt, 2008). For example, the experiences of parents have been shown to be linked with the way their children appraise certain situations, including

Looking at the diathesis-stress model, it was interesting to read about how vulnerable our brains actually are to the environment and that traits or behaviors can be activated. The combination of stressors and genetic differences a person may have can determine how they are able to cope with a traumatic situation. The two alleles (long allele and short allele) were the basis for the researchers study on whether or not a person was more susceptible to having major depression. Another disorder directly affected by stressful environments, which also includes symptoms of major depression, is post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). My father is a veteran of the Vietnam War and suffers from PTSD. However, from personal experience, my father probably

A genetic vulnerability establishes the individual’s inability to drift away from the negative stressor’s effects because of their tendency to respond hyperactively to these situations, due to the presence of the s allele. Whereas susceptibility is the likelihood of the person to learn through those experiences and better their living conditions. In sum, the outcome of the stress on the individual’s health can be neutralized or even eliminated based on the value & quality of the relationship the individual is

Over time, less severe events are needed to trigger a relapse, as earlier depressive episodes can provide “kindling” for future episodes (Kendler, Thorton, & Gardner, 2000, 2001; Post, 1992). Thus, stressful events have important implications for health and significantly influence the course of depression. Early research on stress and depression examined the unidirectional relationship between these two variables, focusing on how stress increases the risk of depression. Hammen’s (1991, 2006) stress generation model was the first to propose that this relationship could be bidirectional. According to this model, individuals with a history of depression experience more dependent negative life events (i.e., events at least partially controlled by the individual) than those without this history, but no 2 differences in independent events (i.e., fateful or uncontrollable events).

Per Broderick and Blewitt (2015), the hypothalamus and the limbic system (hippocampus, amygdala, septum, and cingulate cortex), all play a role in the regulation of emotion and stress response. As with other aspects of human development; genetics, nutrition, and exposure to teratogens can affect the development of these parts of the brain and emotional development. Per Glover (2013), maternal exposure to stress, such as anxiety and depression, daily hassles, bereavement, life events, bad relationships, and exposure to acute disasters can double the child’s risk of developing emotional and behavioral problems. While she cites the risk increasing from 6% to 12%, she asserts that this increase is of clinical

The hypothesis of stress induced treatment failure was much not studied worldwide even though there were number of theories outlined several proposed determinants of physiological stress reactivity, which are individual, developmental, environmental and substance use related in nature (Alpert and Wilson. 1992; McEwen. 1998; Lazarus and Folkman.1984). The abnormal physiological stress reactivity is vastly investigated as a potential vulnerability marker for various physical and psychological health disparities (Lovallo. 2011), anxiety and depressive disorders (Greaves Lord, et al. 2007; Kagan, et al. 1987) and disruptive behavioral effects (Ortiz and Raine. 2004).

When threatened, the amygdala understands danger and creates a series of hormone releases to generate defensive responses of fight, flight or freeze. Because the amygdala is immune to the effects of stress hormones it may continue to “sound an alarm inappropriately” [6].The amygdala's role in the encoding, storage and retrieval of emotionally-arousing material primes animals to remember emotionally charged or threatening events better than every-day events [6]. NR3Cl is a gene influences the brain's susceptibility to stress hormones - was less likely to be activated in people who have been abused, studied by Michael Meaney from Douglas Mental Health University Institute in Montreal [6]. Children who are abused early are flooded with stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol, impacting on how the brain develops and the stress regulation method. This in turn impacts on the hippocampus, the area which controls feelings, meaning that adult survivors will be more likely to be highly stressed, have difficulties with anger and emotions, and be prone to self-harm, anxiety, suicide and depression.

A biological system is considered robust if it is able to withstand a variety of perturbations such as genomic mutations or changes in its environment. The state of being robust is considered to be an inherent property of evolving and complex dynamic systems, and it has also been suggested that robustness drives evolution and has a key part to play in the survival of organisms [3].Other aspects such as modularity, decoupling and (in the case of genetic networks) the relationship of phenotypic effects and gene similarity, all lend themselves to the increased robustness of an organism. These processes, however, are not without their flaws. There is a possibility that certain control mechanisms will not be functional, leading to the progression of harmful components. This is the most prevalent in HIV infection and the development of cancers. Research into biological systems, robustness and the problems that may arise could also generate new areas for research and provide novel methods for cancer therapy. The robustness of a system is fundamentally about managing a correlation between the system and the environment and deviations from this often result in damage to the system.