All politics aside, the testimony delivered by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford is both triggering and hopeful. Triggering for obvious reasons. Hopeful because ACEs science was so clearly woven to the testimony. Dr. Ford brought the neurobiology of sexual assault into her description regarding how her brain and body responded to trauma. I find listening this testimony triggering, however, I am holding onto the silver-lining is that trauma science may be elevated to a national platform. As difficult as it is, my hope is this conversation will continue to enlighten all of us, deepening our understanding of ACEs Science and trauma.
Recently I read this Transcript "The Neurobiology of Sexual Assault" written and presented by Rebecca Campbell, Ph.D. and funded by the National Institute of Justice. The presentation was called "Research for the Real World Seminar".
Link on the Neurobiology of Sexual Assault for the full transcript - here is a peek:
.... So, how is this going to play out for sexual assault victims? Well, this is how. ....The information that's coming into the victim's brain and body during a sexual assault is traumatic. It is threatening. It is horrifying. It is one of the most psychologically damaging forms of crime that anybody could experience. The amygdala is going to recognize this as a threat to the sustainability of the organism, okay, much like an attempted murder is. The amygdala processes it at that level of severity. It is going to signal to the hypothalamus, "We have a threat to the sustainability of the organism coming in." The hypothalamus is now going to signal to the pituitary and the HPA axis is going to kick in,and there is going to be a hormonal flood in the victim's body.
The catecholamines are often going to be at very, very high levels during the assault. We talked about how these hormones are very helpful for the fight-or-flight response. On the other hand, we've also hinted at a little bit that those hormones may not be the best things in terms of memory. The other thing that these hormones are not the greatest at is that they impair the circuits in our brain that control rational thought. So the parts of our prefrontal cortex that allow us to do "IF this THEN that" — that's rational thought in simple terms — those circuits literally do not work at their optimal levels when catecholamine levels are high. So a victim under sort of normal levels of catecholamine — meaning not being victimized — might be able to look at a situation and say, "Oh, well of course the rational, logical thing for me to do is this."
The victim literally can't think like that during the assault. The catecholamines have caused structural cellular damage to those circuits. It's not permanent; it's temporary. But at the same time, they can't do that "IF this THEN that" thought. So when they're in the middle of the assault, strategies like "Oh, you coulda, you shoulda, you would have done this" — they can't even think of the options, let alone execute them. So again, kind of a tragic situation where our body is working at cross-purposes. On the one hand, it can help here, and on the other hand it's not going to help the rational thought mechanisms...."
Please click this link to read the full transcript: The Neurobiology of Sexual Assault
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