More to psychiatry than just neuroscience; The impact of childhood trauma

The impact of childhood trauma

I enjoyed Dr. Nasrallah’s article “Beyond DSM-5: Clinical and bio­logic features shared by major psy­chiatric syndromes” (From the Editor, Current Psychiatry. October 2017, p. 4,6-7), but there was only 1 mention of childhood trauma, which shares features with most of the common­alities he described, such as inflam­mation, smaller brain volumes, gene and environment interaction, short­ened telomeres, and elevated corti­sol levels. The Adverse Childhood Experiences Study1 taught us about the impact of childhood trauma on the entire organism. We need to focus on that commonality.

Susan Jones, MD
Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist
Virginia Treatment Center for Children
Assistant Professor
Virginia Commonwealth University
School of Medicine
Richmond, Virginia

Reference
1. Felitti VJ, Anda RF, Nordenberg D, et al. Relationship of childhood abuse and household dysfunction to many of the leading causes of death in adults. The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study. Am J Prev Med. 1998;14(4):245-258

Dr. Nasrallah responds

It is worth pointing out that childhood trauma predominantly leads to psy­chotic and mood disorders in adulthood, and the criteria I mentioned would then hold true.