Growing up in fear: A researcher’s view of immigration trauma in children’s brains

FOR DECADES, Martin Teicher, M.D., Ph.D., has investigated the impact of trauma on the developing brain. He is currently an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, where he investigates the effects of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) on brain development and identifies windows of time when brain regions are most vulnerable to early life stressors and at greatest risk for future mental challenges. Since 1988, he has directed the Developmental Biopsychiatry Research Program at McLean Hospital.

ACEs are potentially traumatic events that occur before age 18 but can undermine mental and physical health across the lifespan. They include physical and emotional abuse or neglect, sexual trauma, and challenges that occur within a home environment, such as substance abuse, mental illness, or separation from a parent or caregiver. In recent decades, ACE assessments have expanded to include the harms of poverty, racism, discrimination, exposure to war and environmental disasters, and the devastating impacts of family separation. An accumulation of ACEs during childhood are implicated in a range of mental health challenges, chronic diseases, and leading causes of death that include cancer, diabetes, and heart disease.