Genetics+Article2

[|Canwest News Service] February 26, 2009

According to Canadian research, young children who have been abused may have their genes marked and leaving them less able to deal with stress later in life. A Montreal team has found large numbers of so-called "chemical marks," facotrs which restrain a key mechanism for dealing with stress, in the brains of young men who were physically or sexually abused as children and later committed suicide. Abuse can cause specific changes in the brain, but also a change in expression of an important gene. Sadly, abuse is believed to have happened to as many as 10 to 15 percent of children physically or sexually abused.

The Montreal group has now found a similar genetic change in men who were abused. The men had suffered major instances of physical and sexual abuse as adolescents and committed suicide in their thirties.

This discovery provides clues for better understanding the neurological consequences and devising treatments to reverse the damage that was caused.