Medical Notes: Trauma Shrinks Your Brain, Restoring Movement To Paralyzed Limbs, And Why Rates of Poverty Have Declined

Does trauma shrink your brain?

The cerebellum is a part of the brain that influences emotion, memory, movement, and balance. A new study in Molecular Psychiatry has discovered that the cerebellums in people with PTSD are two percent smaller than in unaffected adults. However, we don’t yet know if this is caused by the trauma, or if a smaller cerebellum makes someone more likely to develop PTSD. (Duke University)

Can spinal stimulation restore mobility for paralyzed limbs?

Lower limb paralysis affects nearly 1.4 million Americans. The current spinal stimulators are bulky and can damage surrounding tissue. Scientists have created a smaller device that’s much less invasive and way more accurate. When used in mice, the stimulator restored the rodent’s range of motion. The findings are published in the journal Nano Letters. (Johns Hopkins University)

Rates of poverty are in decline

The Annual Report On U.S. Consumption Poverty: 2022 reports that poverty has decreased by 27 percentage points since 1980. However, this news directly contradicts the CDC’s estimates of just 1.5 percentage points. The reason is because the annual report measures the food, housing, transportation, and other goods families can purchase, while the CDC only measures income. (University of Notre Dame)