What happens to your brain and body after a traumatic experience like sexual assault, according to science

Christine Blasey Ford said she didn't really want to come forward with decades-old allegations of sexual misconduct aimed at Supreme Court Nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Instead, she felt she had to.

Our memories are imperfect, human devices

Neuroscientists haven't entirely figured out how our brains work.

It’s impossible to pin down one exact place where a memory lands and lives in our grey matter, because the brain acts more like a network than a filing cabinet. We do know that one area of the brain, called the hippocampus, is involved in keeping track of our memories.

In a state of heightened emotion, such as an attack or an assault, the stress hormones we release can strengthen connections in that area of the brain, even growing extra nerve cell extensions (dendrites) and leading to a chronic state of hyper-vigilance.

The body has a few options when presented with a threat like that: freeze, fly, or fight.

The heart quickens, and we’re breathing swiftly, readying to fight back, run, or hide. Blood may start flowing out to the extremities as we prepare.

Memories of this period of "high emotional intensity" can have a kind of "enhanced encoding," making them more salient and clear, as researchers wrote in a 2018 paper in the Journal of the American Osteopathic Association.

A deluge of long-term effects

Studies show that survivors of sexual assaults can suffer all kinds of troubling health effects. They have demonstrated higher rates of obesity and Type-2 diabetes, gastrointestinal issues (like irritable bowel syndrome), depression, and chronic pain. Trauma survivors can even be less likely to seek preventive care, because anything from a routine teeth cleaning to a pelvic exam can be a re-traumatizing experience of touch.

David Emerson, a yoga teacher at the Trauma Center of the Justice Resource Institute in Massachusetts, has studied how yoga might be able to help trauma survivors by allowing them to reconnect with their bodies. He says there are essentially two ways that trauma victims conjure up memories. One is explicit — the memories that we have words for and can share with others. The other kind of memory is a more implicit form.

"The details about that night that bring me here today are ones I will never forget," Ford said in prepared remarks Thursday. "They have been seared into my memory and have haunted me, especially as an adult."

"Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter," Ford said on Thursday. "The uproarious laughter between the two [boys] and their having fun at my expense."

That tracks with what we know about the power of a traumatic memory.

Trauma is tougher when you feel powerless

Many psychologists and therapists operate under the assumption that the best way to deal with trauma is to talk about it. But there's really no reward for sexual assault survivors who choose to process their trauma out loud. It's been much better to remain silent, speechless, and keep those memories hidden.

Ahead of the Thursday hearing, 85 year-old Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg spoke up about that very problem.

"Every woman of my vintage has not just one story but many stories," she told a crowd of law students at Georgetown on Wednesday. "But we thought there was nothing you could do about it — boys will be boys — so just find a way to get out of it."

In other words, the effects of feeling stuck and incapacitated are

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What happens to your brain and body after a traumatic experience like sexual assault, according to science

Our memories are imperfect, human devices

A deluge of long-term effects

Trauma is tougher when you feel powerless

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