@hendricksonmd
Psychiatry/Neuroscience: what changes after trauma, why, and how do we thrive? Emphasis on catecholamines, sleep, social cognition, belongingness as necessary for felt security. Opinions my own.
But, this first step towards just changing the way we think and talk about these types of experiences and where they come from, is by itself one I believe to be really important.
Currently, we're trying to work out individualized tests of some of the specific mechanisms that may be causing both the physical and mental/cognitive symptoms - and that we might be able to treat directly.
That people with a higher burden of past trauma exposure report more persistent autonomic symptoms after COVID-19 or other viral infections, even adjusting for symptoms of PTSD or similar symptoms prior to COVID.
And while these changes may interact and reinforce each other, they can both be real, without one necessarily being the "real" or primary effect.
This paper tests a relationship we've been seeing in our clinical work for years but that hasn't been well studied or recognized:
Instead, we need to be able to consider how both psychological stress and trauma and physiologic stressors (e.g. COVID infection, TBI, etc) can both turn on changes in our brain and body's stress-threat response systems that can affect both physical and mental health.
But, that's not nec'ly how it works. Treating PTSD, anxiety etc can help substantially with physical symptoms & I will advocate for effective MH treatment all day long. But it doesn't mean that your physiology is now the same as if it hadn't happened - & if it's not, you're just doing it wrong.
eg, so many people I see with PTSD have sig physical symptoms - & they have a list of diagnoses (hypertension, IBS, heart palpitations or POTS, etc), or there's an assumption that if they treat their mental health diagnoses and "manage their stress better" then their physical symptoms will be gone.
But even when our medical system recognizes that physical and mental/cognitive symptoms are connected, it's assumed that either the physical symptoms are the "real" and primary experience and the psychiatric symptoms are "secondary", or visa versa.
It's obvious to most people that you can experience physical symptoms after a stressful event or a trauma - and that physical illness can cause anxiety, insomnia, cognitive changes, etc.
tl;dr: Our medical system constantly wants to silo physical and mental health, but they are fundamentally intertwined more than we know how to talk about - and things that cause both physical stress and psychological trauma can interact with each other.
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
I was on NPR last week talking about a new publication that is really important to me - part of our larger effort to change the way we think and talk about both mental and physical health, and how they relate to each other, after stress and trauma.
www.knkx.org/2026-01-28/u...
#IDSky
First person with H5N5 has died :(
10/ After 14 years of working on this topic, I tell you this with confidence:
Highly invasive mercenary spyware is a power abuse machine.
It's incompatible with Americans constitutional rights and freedoms.
And our legal system and civil society is not prepared for the next chapter.
1. The DOJ has sent threatening letters to several medical journals, focused around whether these journals are spreading misinformation that harms the American people and suppressing alternative viewpoints.
I study how the norms and institutions of science facilitate discovery and self-correction.
My post flag (9’x17’) flying upside down as a signal of distress at the edge of the rally at Bainbridge Island’s waterfront park on Eagle Harbor.
We opted to join Bainbridge Island’s rally, which had well over 1K+ protestors. One of the speakers we heard was a Japanese American internee who, in 1942, was removed from Bainbridge Island to an internment camp with her family. Her closing words:
“Never again is now.”
Defensive gun use is rare but gun violence exposure is far too common. Check out this interview re: our new study in @jama.com Open from @mikeanestis.bsky.social.
Watch the full interview for important thoughts on very real threats to our work @ the GVRC.
www.njspotlightnews.org/video/rutger...
I’m am adaptation scientist and here’s what I had to say about this—many years ago already.
Mandatory high school civics class that isn’t just like “how a bill becomes law” or whatever but also “how NOAA powers your phone’s weather app” and “NIH helped make your asthma inhaler”
Trump is LYING about Social Security right now. Elon Musk called Social Security a "Ponzi scheme."
They are cutting staff drastically at Social Security to make it harder for seniors to get their benefits.
These corrupt billionaires need to keep their HANDS OFF Social Security!
On climate, did you know that only 11% of people in the US (and even smaller percentages in Canada, the UK, Australia and beyond) are dismissive?
Yet because their voices are so loud and persistent, people often think they’re 50%.
This is why I advocate so strongly for using YOUR voice!
A quote from the paper stating that their results extend my advice about the importance of talking about climate change
Researchers found 15 people in Kansas City who had changed their mind about climate change, and asked them why. Fascinating!
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Mechanosensation of the heart and gut elicits hypometabolism and vigilance in mice | Nature Metabolism
www.nature.com/articles/s42...
Exciting new data on psilocybin effects on hypothalamic CRH neurons @gergelyturi.bsky.social Tamas Füzesi &
@stressynomics.bsky.social
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Dirty air, dementia, and other adverse brain effects
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
new Feature @nature.com open-access
New study out now in SS&M from our team @njgvrc.bsky.social! Both frequency + recency of gun violence exposure influence mental health and suicide.
More national evidence of the extensive toll that gun violence takes on our collective health and well-being.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
My new year's resolution was to work through the pile of almost-finished papers so... #PrePrintAlert #NeuroSkyence. This is an update to one we put out late 2021, which got delayed with Lilya (lead author) going on maternity leave (yay, lab baby! 🥰). A brief 🧵 1/
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
We've uncovered sex-specific effects of early-life stress (ELS) exposure on fear memory, HPA-axis regulation, and brain metabolism🧠. Unsupervised clustering shows that fear responses are more than only freezing.
@mathiasvschmidt.bsky.social
nature.com/articles/s42...
Highlights in thread👇
five time series of global mean surface temperature changes starting low and noisy in the 1850s - rising clearly since the 1960s - and showing 2024 was clearly the warmest.
All surface temperature products for 2024 are now live.
All show 2024 is the warmest year (very clearly).
The estimates of the change since the pre-industrial (1850-1900) are more uncertain but range from 1.46 to 1.62ºC.
It is therefore *likely* this was the first year that exceeded 1.5ºC.
The Conversation asked me to share my thoughts on the new U.S. Surgeon General Advisory around alcohol and cancer & to break down some of the science in an accessible way. Check it out here: theconversation.com/even-1-drink...