Elephants and PTSD, Elephants and PTSD

[t&tt]

"E" is for Elephant, "E" is for Extinction

The trauma doesn't go away, and the lessons from human history show that genocides such as what elephants are facing leaves scars on both the body and the brain.

http://www.animalsandsociety.org/blog/e-is...-for-extinction

[t&tt]

Of Pachyderms and Paratroopers, 2009

Elephant and humans minds both falter in the face of life-threatening violence. But the real lesson goes deeper. What veterans have learned and elephants know makes them formidable allies in helping solve what has become a problem of epidemic proportions.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ga-bradshaw/...o_b_349107.html?

[t&tt]

An explanation of how trauma/toxic stress damages the body by trauma expert, Dr. Gabor Mate. Think of the eles.

Dr. Mate: …Stress is a specific physiological event in the body. It’s not just a nervous tension that a person experiences. In fact you can experience nervous tension without the body being stressed. On the other hand the body can be stressed without you experiencing anything. You might not even be aware of it….

Q: Why is that…?

Dr. Mate: …This goes back to early childhood…when the stress mechanism shut down very early, though the awareness of stress is shut down very early, then stress becomes normal to you but you no longer experience it as stress. In other words that the awareness of it gets disconnected from consciousness; this has been shown in animals and human beings as well. In terms of the stress-immune connection it’s basically that…It’s complicated but not that complicated. …If you look at the role of emotions, the role of anger is to protect your boundaries. You get angry when your boundaries are threatened or invaded. The role of the immune system is also to protect our boundaries. The immune system recognizes a threat, and attacks it. When you suppress anger, given the physiological unity of all these systems, you end up suppressing the immune system as well. The immune system can put out chemicals that the brain can read. And the brain puts out chemicals that the immune system can read. So there’s this constant interaction between them. So whatever happens on the emotional plane immediately has its repercussions immunologically. And people who are stressed, for example, medical students under the stress of examinations, have been shown to have reduced level of the activity of an immune cell called “natural killer” cells. In other words they’re more prone to have infections at that point. The loneliest amongst them had the greatest decrease in the activity of natural killer cells. Women with breast cancer, who don’t know how to get angry, have less natural killer cell activity in their immune system. They are also more prone to die more quickly.

http://ww3.tvo.org/video/164342/gabor-mate...-peoples-health (2:23-4:17) - Gabor Mate on the hidden cost of stress on peoples' health. (Mar. 2011). TV Ontario.

Additional insights:
Compromised Survivorship in Zoo Elephants, 2008
http://www.helpelephants.com/pdf/SCIENCE%2...B%20ET%20AL.pdf
Harvard-Toxic Stress
http://z13.invisionfree.com/Elephant_Comme...ndpost&p=728670

[t&tt]

Intergenerational Trauma, 2008 [videos, 24 mins total]

Good explanation about the different types of PTSD. Pertinent to the elephant experience.

Pt 1: http://tiny.cc/ig-trauma1
Pt 2: http://tiny.cc/ig-trauma2
Pt 3: http://tiny.cc/ig-trauma3

Also: Historical Trauma and Microaggressions: A Framework for ­Culturally-Based Practice, 2010

"Historical trauma is defined...as “a constellation of characteristics associated with massive cumulative group trauma across generations”.5 Historical trauma differs from from other types of trauma in that the traumatic event is shared by a collective group of people who experience the consequences of the event, as well as the fact that the impact of the trauma is held personally and can be transmitted over generations."

http://www.cmh.umn.edu/ereview/Oct10.html

"Neuroscience has demonstrated that all mammals share a ubiquitous developmental attachment mechanism and a common stress regulating neurophysiology. Now, a wealth of human–animal studies and the experiences of human victims of violence are available to help elephants and other species survive." Bradshaw, Schore, Brown, Poole, Moss. Elephant Breakdown. Nature, 2005.
http://allanschore.com/pdf/SchoreBradshawN...ntbreakdown.pdf

See also: The Cambridge Decalration on Consciousness, 2012

"On this day of July 7, 2012, a prominent international group of cognitive neuroscientists, neuropharmacologists, neurophysiologists, neuroanatomists and computational neuroscientists gathered at The University of Cambridge to reassess the neurobiological substrates of conscious experience and related behaviors in human and non-human animals."
http://fcmconference.org/img/CambridgeDecl...nsciousness.pdf

[Space4Eles]

Thanks, t&tt, for more valuable references.
"Historical trauma" is a very relevant subject - especially so I think for African elephants who find themselves in Western zoos having, as calves, survived the culling holocausts that were seen as "necessary" in the southern African states in the 1980s/1990s.
Looking at the databases for African elephants now confined in Western zoos, it is notable how many are aged around 30 and younger, originated in Kruger, and would have witnessed violent slaughter.

I wonder whether the zoo community takes any notice of these research findings - or even knows about them?
But then making a profit and respect for animals rarely go hand-in-hand ...

[t&tt]

You're very welcome, s4e!

My suspicion is that many zoos are in a "convenient" denial about this knowledge. If they recognize it, they are in a conundrum because elephants are huge money-makers for zoos, as you pointed out. The direction of traumatology research has been/is validating how captivity is bad for other-animals but especially so for the "cognitive elite" like elephants, cetaceans, primates, et al. The only zoos that are "getting this" are the ones considering closing their elephant exhibits.

I think your observations are spot on especially the fact that 'historical trauma' is extremely relevant to our elephant kin. I would like to add that Thailand is at the center of having "colonized" Asian elephants. The routine cultural enslavment, practice of killing mothers for babies, and the practice of the tortuous phajaan for mind/body/soul-death programming so they can be used presently in entertaintment/tourism and previously logging and war efforts applies as well. And, of course, this applies to all elephants in zoos, circuses, and entertainment around the world.

See also Phajaan:
http://z13.invisionfree.com/Elephant_Comme...?showtopic=1225

[t&tt]

A very important article from the New York Times on PTSD.

A New Focus on the ‘Post’ in Post-Traumatic Stress
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/25/science/...ma-victims.html

[t&tt]

New research on human PTSD. I thought it worthy of a post.

Abused Children May Get Unique Form of PTSD

These genetic alterations are known as epigenetic changes: chemical differences that don’t mutate the DNA itself but affect how actively and efficiently the genes are made into proteins. By either silencing or activating genes, epigenetic changes can influence everything from brain development and functioning to the risk for certain diseases. While not necessarily permanent, some of these changes can last a lifetime and some can even be passed on to the next generation.

“In PTSD with a history of child abuse, we found a 12-fold higher [level] of epigenetic changes,” says Mehta. In contrast, people who experienced trauma later in life showed genetic effects that tended to be short-lived, and did not permanently alter the function of the genes....

http://healthland.time.com/2013/04/30/abus...t-form-of-ptsd/