The 2018 Building Strong Brains Tennessee ACEs Summit took place last week in Nashville, TN. The theme of this year’s summit was “Celebrating Successes and Imagining Possibilities” and there is plenty to celebrate. Tennessee is one of the most innovative states when it comes to ACEs awareness. Tennessee understands that childhood trauma is the root cause of its poor health outcomes, high rates of addiction and other ailments. And Tennessee is doing something about it. Tennessee’s leadership...

Thanks to an explosion in scientific research now possible with imaging technologies, such as fMRI and SPECT, experts can actually see how the brain develops. This helps explain why exposure to adverse childhood experiences can so deeply influence and change a child's brain and thus their physical and emotional health and quality of life across their lifetime. The above time-lapse study was conducted over 10 years. The darker colors represent brain maturity (brain development). I have added...

The brain doesn’t fully develop until about the age of 25. This fact is sometimes quite surprising and eye opening to most adults. It can also be somewhat overwhelming for new parents and professionals who are interacting with babies and young children every day, to contemplate. It is essential to realize however, that the greatest time of development occurs in the years prior to kindergarten. And even more critical to understand is that by age three 85 percent of the core structures of the...