Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. Corresponding author: Michael D. Trauma in childhood is a grave psychosocial, medical, and public policy problem that has serious consequences for its victims and for society. Chronic interpersonal violence in children is common worldwide. Developmental traumatology, the systemic investigation of the psychiatric and psychobiological effects of chronic overwhelming stress on the developing child, provides a framework and principles when empirically examining the neurobiological effects of pediatric trauma.
Despite the widespread prevalence of childhood trauma, less is known about trauma's biological effects in children as compared to adults with child trauma histories; and even less is known about how these pediatric mechanisms underlie trauma's short-term and long-term medical and mental health consequences.
This article focuses primarily on the peer-reviewed literature on the neurobiological sequelae of childhood trauma in children and adults with histories of childhood trauma. We also review relevant studies of animal models of stress to help us better understand the psychobiological effects of trauma during development. Next, we review the neurobiology of trauma, its clinical applications and the biomarkers that may provide important tools for clinicians and researchers, both as predictors of posttraumatic stress symptoms and as useful tools to monitor treatment response.
Finally, we offer suggestions for future researchers. Keywords: Childhood trauma, developmental traumatology, developmental psychopathology, posttraumatic stress symptoms, stress, biological stress systems, brain development, genes, polymorphisms, epigenetics, cortisol.
Trauma in childhood has serious consequences for its victims and for society. For the purposes of this critical review, childhood trauma is defined according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV and V as exposure to actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence [ 1 , 2 ].
