Kia ora! Welcome
Have you ever wondered what effect trauma has on the brain?

When we experience trauma, our brain becomes overwhelmed to the point it either freezes or goes into a state of hyper-alertness. We can identify these states as our fight or flight responses. Traumatic experiences come in all shapes and sizes. It could be a car accident, witnessing a robbery, being attacked, or prolonged emotional distress (for example, childhood neglect or intimate partner abuse).
 

When we become stressed, our brain sends a cortisol-releasing hormone (ACTL) to the kidneys, allowing cortisol to be released into the body. Cortisol ramps up our METABOLISM, which is why we become more alert, energised, and ready to go when faced with a threat.
Sitting just above our kidneys are our adrenal glands, and it is from here that adrenaline is simultaneously released into our bloodstream.

So how does the release of these hormones affect our brain function?


Cortisol turns down the hippocampus, and adrenaline turns up the amygdala. What this means in reality, is although adrenaline helps us lay down certain kinds of memories, cortisol restricts our ability to integrate these memories, and unfortunately, if the release of these hormones continues long-term, the cortisol becomes toxic to the brain, causing a deterioration in its function, and the adrenaline causes an increase in the laying down of emotional memory.

Now back to that fight or flight response:
When we feel threatened, the part of our brain that activates is the superior colliculus (it sits deep in the brain stem). This is where we hold our first line of defense because its responses are super-fast and that's what we need in an emergency. Thinking the problem through would happen in higher levels of the brain (the pre-frontal cortex) and this would take too long in an emergency!

Another key element of the brain stem is its direct connection with the eye. Whatever we see is transmitted straight to the brain stem, regardless of whether we are aware of it or not.

Next to the superior colliculus is the periaqueductal gray. Some people call it our cockroach or reptilian brain because it's the most primitive part of our brain. Its job is to detect danger. Unfortunately, in traumatised people, it gets stuck in an activated state. Both the superior colliculus and the periaqueductal gray sit in the mid-brain, and it is this area of the brain that signals a fight or flight response to the sympathetic nervous system (the part of our nervous system that controls our body's involuntary responses).

But what about the freeze response?
Yes, you are right, there is another response, and that is the freeze response. When the freeze response occurs, the periaqueductal gray activates the parasympathetic nervous system in equal measure with the sympathetic nervous system. When in the freeze state, our muscles become limp, and our metabolism shuts down.
Additionally, endorphins are released. Because of this, we don't feel pain, we lose our awareness of our surroundings, and our body effectively shuts down.

Let me explain brain integration:
There are three brain networks, all integrated with each other, and all three are adversely affected by trauma.

In addition to the impacts, long-term release of adrenaline and cortisol have on our body, trauma breaks the connections between the primitive, emotional, and thinking areas of our brain.
There are so many ways we can be affected by this, here are just a few examples: