by Dr. Ayanna R. Cummings
Neuroplasticity is simply the brain's ability to regenerate new concepts and synapses (i.e., the binding elements in information processing through the brain's many anatomical pathways). Humans are very lucky that synaptic pruning, through which unused brain cells (i.e., neurons) begin to prune, or die off, does not preclude our ability to learn and develop new skills as we mature. In fact, neurogenesis was not a known or understood biopsychological phenomenon until the 1960s through the groundbreaking work of Joseph Altman (Kumar, Pareek, Faiq, Ghosh, & Kumari, 2019).
When children of a critical period are exposed to traumatic stressors, such as poverty, crime, abuse, neglect, or chemical substances (e.g., psychotropic or mind-altering drugs or alcohols, addictive substances, etc.), the likelihood that they will experience activating life events that cause deleterious mental and physical health outcomes also increases. This is referred to as the diathesis-stress hypothesis, the concept that there are interactions between genetics and environmental factors that explain why some individuals experience mental illness and others do not, even when genetic predisposition to such illnesses remain constant as heritable (Tsuang, Bar, Stone, & Faraone, 2004).
It is uniquely oppressive that children of a certain identity group, such as children who are Black, Indigenous, or People of Color (i.e., BIPOC), and Multicultural identity group members, experience racialized traumatic experiences more frequently and more deeply than children of dominant ethnic or racial groups. Such concepts as "identity-relevant adversity" can be learned about in both scholarly and popular literature. A simple boolean language search for that phrase, Identity Relevant Adversity, yields 8,580,000 results in the Google Search engine.
It is applicable to the discussion of learning and human brain plasticity and synaptic development that we examine potential moderators of such learning transfer mechanisms in the knowledge acquisition process. While it is documented that psychological and physiological distress stemming from racism predict a multitude of illnesses (Sawyer et al., 2012), both life-threatening physical ailments as well as life-altering mental illnesses, it is also well understood that there is the potential for posttraumatic growth, resilience, and overcoming adversity even among populations who are predicted to suffer later in life post-trauma.
For example, "the Identity Disruption Model proposes that early adversity can disrupt typical identity development, which may then increase one's vulnerability to psychopathology," (Hayward, Vartanian, Kwok, & Newby, 2020, p.112). In contrast to this theory, though, is the concept of posttraumatic growth and 'finding strength in adversity," posited by Sadaghiyani, Belgrade, Kira, & Lee (2023, p. 316). How then do outliers in the linear correlation equation, between stressful or traumatic adversities in early childhood and deleterious mental, emotional, and physical health outcomes, emerge?My own anecdotal examination of such "outliers," those who in my biostatistical and epidemiological analysis of stress in black women as a 19-year-old intern with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, GA, buttressed the same notion that is documented in the Sadaghiyani, Belgrade, Kira, & Lee (2023) article. That is, social support mechanisms mediated and moderated (i.e., a mediated moderation model) the impact of stressful life events on perceived stress in black women in our analysis.
Sadaghiyani, Belgrade, Kira, & Lee (2023) go on to also highlight the critical need for environments that are diversity-friendly, which embrace unique differences among individuals, and appreciate and value cultural and ethnic identities. The authors also note that positive framing of discrimination experiences or other adversities significantly contributed to personal growth. Participants in the phenomenological study also benefited from the application of cumulative adversity in the posttraumatic growth process. While participants in the Sadaghiyani, Belgrade, Kira, & Lee (2023) study were all multicultural identity group members, the results can be extrapolated to the contextual application of belonging and positive framing for BIPOC and multicultural, expanding our conceptualizations of ethnic diversity and inclusion in the public and private sectors.
References
Kumar A, Pareek V, Faiq MA, Ghosh SK, Kumari C. (2019). ADULT NEUROGENESIS IN HUMANS: A Review of Basic Concepts, History, Current Research, and Clinical Implications. Innov Clin Neurosci. 2019 May 1;16(5-6):30-37. PMID: 31440399; PMCID: PMC6659986.
Sawyer PJ, Major B, Casad BJ, Townsend SS, Mendes WB (2012). Discrimination and the stress response: psychological and physiological consequences of anticipating prejudice in interethnic interactions. Am J Public Health. 2012 May;102(5):1020-6. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2011.300620. Epub 2012 Mar 15. PMID: 22420818; PMCID: PMC3483920.
Tsuang MT, Bar JL, Stone WS, Faraone SV. (2004). Gene-environment interactions in mental disorders. World Psychiatry. 2004 Jun;3(2):73-83. PMID: 16633461; PMCID: PMC1414673.