Sad memories change the amount of gray matter in the brain

The new Cornell University study found healthy adults near the World Trade Center (WTC) during the September 11, 2001 attack, were less likely to have gray matter in the main emotional center than people about 200 miles away.

According to Barbara Ganzel, principal investigator at the work and postdoctoral fellow at Cornell University of Human Ecology, 'This shows that painful memories can have a lasting effect on the brain, even in healthy people. '

The work published in the April issue of Neurolmage is one of the first works to study the impact of tremors on healthy adults. This work follows another project, along with the author at Cornell University, who discovered that people living near the World Trade Center on September 11 had a more reactive brain with emotional stimuli such as those of face scared. Combined, both works provide a new image of what appears in the brains of healthy people who must experience a concussion event.

The amount of gray matter - including most capillary cells and blood vessels - is less in emotional processing areas and perhaps, according to Ganzel's assumption, dealing with the normal response of the brain to shock. Participants in the trial did not experience any physical and mental health disorders. Gray matter, a major component of the nervous system, consists of nerve cells that process information in the brain.

Magnetic resonance imaging from healthy adults over 3 years after September 11, 2001, people near the key on September 11 had areas with less gray matter than those farther away.These are the three views of the less gray areas of brain that belong to the group near the 11-9 case.Notably, all these areas (brighter areas in the image) involve emotional processing.(Photo: Cornell University)

About half of Americans experience mental shocks in their lives, and scientists know a lot about their effects on the brains of people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but not much. About people who do not experience medical disorders. Ganzel added that most people with mental shock do not suffer from PTSD.

Smaller brain regions also responded more strongly to the threat, and Ganzel suggested that these changes could be a beneficial response to living in an unstable environment.

'We have known for a long time that psychological shock can lead to sensitivity to mental health disorders for many years. This may be the focal point for us to explore the biological mechanism hidden under that vulnerability. '

The researchers used two types of magnetic resonance imaging to scan the brain of 18 people 1.5 miles from WTC on Sept. 11 and compared it to 18 people who lived 200 miles away at the same time. One shows the amount of gray matter and the other shows the brain's response to emotional stimulation (images of frightened and calm faces). People who live closer to the 11-9 disaster show the emotional response in the amygdale, a region of the brain that detects the presence of threatening information.

Combining brain data reveals that people near WTC have smaller, more reactive amygdale, and vice versa, which are also associated with anxiety, restlessness for many years to come. Other brain regions involved in handling emotions are also smaller in people close to the disaster.

Researchers also found that people who were tested who underwent many other types of psychological trauma (violent crime, sudden death of a loved one) also had a similar reduction in gray matter and countered. Respond to such emotional faces and worries.

Ganzel explained, 'This shows that the difference we see in the brain and the behavior of people living near the 11-9 disaster is not only a special occurrence in an event. And it turns out that the same loss of gray matter happens with normal aging, which raises the question of what role the mental shock plays in the aging brain. '

Co-authors include Elise Temple, Dartmouth University, graduate student Pilyoung Kim, Cornell University, Gary Glover, Stanford University.