Physical activity "erases" the consequences of childhood trauma from the brain, scientists have found

Scientists from Heidelberg University in Germany and their colleagues have shown that the consequences of childhood trauma are not "engraved" in the brain forever. In people with difficult childhoods who led physically active lives, the connections between brain regions were found to be stronger, and their stress response more resilient. The results of the study involving 75 adults were published in the journal Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging.

Emotional, physical abuse, or neglect in childhood alter brain function and increase the risk of post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and bipolar disorder. Science has traditionally described such a brain through "deficits" and "scars," but the authors of this study decided to test a different perspective. "We wanted to challenge the idea of 'brain scars' as a sentence: perhaps trauma-related features reflect risk, not destiny," explained the study's lead researcher, Christian Schmahl.

Participants were examined using functional MRI (fMRI) in a resting state, tracking the connectivity of three regions that regulate emotions and stress: the amygdala, hippocampus, and anterior cingulate cortex. They were also asked how physically active they had been throughout their lives. It turned out that physical activity altered the nature of the relationship between a difficult childhood and the brain's functional connectivity. In sedentary participants, a difficult childhood was associated with weaker connections between these regions, while in physically active participants, it was associated with stronger ones.

The greatest reorganization was observed at 150–390 minutes of activity per week—exactly within the range recommended by the World Health Organization, meaning approximately half an hour to an hour of movement per day. It is precisely at this level of exercise that the brain most easily builds configurations that support adaptation to stress.

Physical activity is an accessible and inexpensive resource that can be maintained anywhere. "Childhood adversity increases vulnerability but does not have to determine a person's life trajectory," concluded the study's first author, Lemye Zehirlioglu.