Dr. Jorge Manzanares, from the Miguel Hernádez University (Elche / Alicante), the stress suffered during childhood, causes the level to experience pleasure to be reduced, and as a consequence, people who have undergone stress, look for external stimuli to the natural ones.
"These nerve pathways of pleasure are stimulated by natural factors such as music, chocolate or sex and these may not be sufficient for individuals with altered genes and therefore have to resort to additional stimuli such as substance use."
This statement is part of a study coordinated by Manzanares himself, who has tried to demonstrate how abuse (of any kind) received in childhood, produces functional changes in the brain which increase vulnerability when consuming alcohol when it reaches adolescence.
The results seem to determine that the brain of some abused young people positively accepts the consumption of toxic substances, as well as the lack of perception of the risk associated with these behaviors
The work has been carried out jointly with the Complutense University of Madrid, and is financed with 140000 euros by the National Drug Plan. 660 young people between the ages of 16 and 18 have been interviewed, of which 330 consume alcohol, and within the latter group, 60 percent say they have been mistreated in some way in childhood.
Tests associated with the investigation
In parallel, Jorge Manzanares has analyzed the behavior of mice separated in the postnatal period of his mother. The tests carried out when these animals reached adolescence have allowed us to verify the regulation of stress processes, and the ability of cells to regenerate.
The behavior of certain images has also been observed in humans. People who had been mistreated in childhood (regardless of whether or not they consumed alcohol) had a perceived risk of moderate aversive because they minimized the danger. In addition the images related to drugs or alcohol are very appealing.
Depending on the results obtained, adolescents' predisposition to alcohol consumption is attributed, to factors such as stress and the alteration of brain neuroplasticity.
Psychiatrist Gabriel Rubio states that the mechanisms and brain circuits that are activated by being subjected to child abuse, makes boys and girls motivated to try more and less assess risk
The results of this research suggest that it is necessary to develop prevention programs and strategies so that abused young people learn to assess risk situations in a context different from the rest. The researchers emphasize the development of a preventive therapy to try to acquire that awareness of risk that it is distorted when they are mistreated and thus get them to avoid appetite Towards alcohol.
I am left with the question of whether in this search for pleasure, young people who have been mistreated in childhood, would accept other activities associated with risk, such as certain sports, or achieve early independence from the family, to experiment if they are capable of taking responsibility in certain situations.
On the other hand, it is known that children in general have little perception of risk, and this age group also includes very young adolescents (up to 14/15 years old). Therefore I understand that what the work proposes is that this perception is still lower in the case of abused children, or that the ability to assess the consequences of dismissing those risks is inhibited.
