Child abuse alters stress-fighting gene, study says

In a study published in the Journal Nature Neuroscience, researchers report that people who were abused or neglected as children showed genetic alterations that likely made them more biologically sensitive to stress. The findings help clarify the biology behind the wounds of a difficult childhood and hint at what constitutes resilience in those able to shake off such wounds. The McGill researchers were postdoctoral fellow Patrick McGowan, Michael Meaney, Aya Sasaki, Ana C. D'Alessio, Sergiy Dymov, Benoît Labonté and Moshe Szyf, all of McGill, and Dr. Gustavo Turecki, a McGill researcher who leads the Brain Bank.