Neurotransmitters: HELP THEM!

According to dictionary.com here are the definitions of neurotransmitters and synapses.

Neurotransmitter:

any of several chemical substances, as epinephrine oracetylcholine, that transmit nerve impulses across a synapse to apostsynaptic element, as another nerve, muscle, or gland.

Neurotransmitters are chemicals that carry signals and messages from one neuron to another in the brain. Some neurotransmitters include serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine. Also GABA.

Neurotransmitters are chemical molecules that brain cells (neurons) and nerve cells use to communicate with each other.

These molecules are released from one neuron (the presynaptic neuron) and travel across a gap (known as a synapse) to attach themselves to a specific 

receptor site on an opposing neuron (the postsynaptic neuron). When molecules of a given neurotransmitter dock at its dedicated receptor site, specific functions are activated in the receiving cell.

The neurotransmitter may then be re-released back into the synapse for re-uptake into the presynaptic neuron, at which point the transmission process can be repeated.

Read more: Gaba Effects on the Brain | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/list_5828577_gaba-effects-brain.html#ixzz2ARFYiEKO

Synapses:

a region where nerve impulses are transmitted andreceived, encompassing the axon terminal of a neuron thatreleases neurotransmitters in response to an impulse, anextremely small gap across which the neurotransmitters travel, and the adjacent membrane of an axon, dendrite, ormuscle or gland cell with the appropriate receptormolecules for picking up the neurotransmitters.

You wouldn't believe these pathways that these little guys make in the brain during utero and the first year of life. It's INCREDIBLE! Even while a child is in utero, the brain and pathways are being set up that will affect the child for the rest of his or her life. 

The first year of life can re-rout or affirm these pathways. 

The child learns attachment, security, how to self-soothe, or how to survive and that they can only depend on themselves. Fears and survival skills can be embedded in the brain that will last years. 

Real life examples: a child who spent the first year of her life in an orphanage, still has the feeling of being abandoned at age of 10. Her quote, "mom, I know that you are going to be here in the morning when I wake up, but something in my brain is always afraid that you will not be here." This happens night after night.

A child who spent her first year of life in an orphanage cannot stand the sound of crying babies. She will not play with baby dolls that cry. She was adopted the day before she turned one, she is now 7.

A child who learned to feed, bathe, and change her baby sister and find food for herself, learned how to be a mom long before she was supposed, still has strong motherly tendencies towards her sister and everyone else. Why? Because she could not rely on the parent in charge to take care of her. So she learned that adults are not trustworthy. This still affects her, now at age 7.

When trauma happens early in a child's life the chemicals in the brain are not at levels that they should for a normal child. Attachment is very difficult. 

The job for adoptive parents is to re-train the way the brain thinks. WHAT????  Even discipline for trauma children (whether adopted or not) has be different than discipline for a child without trauma. 

Sensory Processing Disorder can begin during a stressful pregnancy, a difficult birth, prematurity/NICU, Early hospitalization, abuse, neglect, and trauma. 

Trauma kids/adults live out of the back of their brain. Fight, Flight, or Freeze is in overload. Vestibular is heightened. 

Neurochemistry. Wow. 

The road to combat and change these in children/adults is a long process. It must be met with determination, patience, firmness, compassion, outside help, and a view of the future.