Research from UCLA finds that rats exposed to early life trauma showed aberrations of stress hormones, receptors in the amygdala, and inhibited or avoidant behavior, without indications of remembering the specific trauma (foot shock) they had experienced. The researchers conclude “traumatic experience during developmental periods of hippocampal immaturity can promote lifelong changes in symptoms and neuropathology associated with human PTSD even if there is no explicit memory of the early trauma.”
Poulos, A., Reger, M., Mehta, N., Zhuravka, I., et al; Amnesia For Early Life Stress Does Not Preclude The Adult Development Of PTSD Symptoms In Rats. Biological Psychiatry. Online October 11, 2013
How do they know what the rat remembers? Sounds like a pretty mean experiment!
— Steve
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