Repeated Male Violence Deteriorates Women’s Brains, Study

In addition to bruises and scars, repeated episodes of violence cause behavioral and neuronal alterations on the female body. In particular, they cause a deterioration of the hippocampus, an area crucially involved in cognitive processes such as memory, learning new information and navigation mechanisms, but also in the regulation of mood and emotions. This is demonstrated by a study conducted on an animal model by an international research team led by the University of Padua, in collaboration with Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, in the ongoing European project Pink (Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions), and published in the journal ‘iScience’.

The research has shown that, following violent and repeated attacks, the female body shows a drastic reduction in the formation of new neuronal cells in the hippocampus, and possibly in other areas of the brain, accompanied by an increase in the death of neuronal cells. According to Jacopo Agrimi, of the Department of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Padua and first author of the research, and his colleagues, the subjects subjected to psychological and physical violence in the experiment develop anxious-depressive behaviors over time, which is associated with a drastic reduction in one of the subtypes of estrogen receptors, the so-called beta receptors.

“With the help of our CNR neuroscientist colleagues Marco Brondi and Claudia Lodovichi, through preclinical studies, we have demonstrated the actual existence of a causal link between the lack of this type of estrogen receptors and the development of behavioral abnormalities – explains Agrimi -. We then examined the status of a protein called brain-derived neurotrophic factor (Bdnf), which is essential for the growth, development and maintenance of the structure and functionality of adult nerve cells; in humans, normal levels of Bdnf are essential for controlling mood, maintaining cognitive abilities, and reacting to different forms of stress. It is not surprising to have found that mimicking violence between partners in experimental animal models also leads to a reduction in the hippocampus of this factor, Bdnf. This possibility could explain even better why women victims of domestic violence can develop serious psychiatric and neurological pathologies over time”.

To date – the researchers recall – few experimental studies have addressed the problem of what the structural consequences of repeated physical and psychological violence, for example by a partner, may be on the female central nervous system. In fact, if in many experimental models the impact of stress imposed by a male on another male has been evaluated, male violence against a woman would seem to have different and much more profound consequences. This study has examined for the first time the repercussions that may derive in specific areas of the female brain and the possible breakdown of physiological protection mechanisms that safeguard the maintenance and therefore the functionality of its cells.

“The evidence obtained in the experimental model on humans still needs to be validated and the long-term ‘structural’ consequences of domestic violence need to be assessed – conclude Marco Dal Maschio and Nazareno Paolocci, the last authors of the study – Specifically, it remains to be explained from a mechanistic point of view how this form of repeated violence increases in women, among many other disease conditions, the risk of contracting various forms of cancer, cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases. The University of Padua is also strongly committed on this front, in concert with other cutting-edge facilities in the treatment of women who have suffered violence such as the anti-violence center of the Policlinico hospital in Milan”.

In the wake of these results, Professor Gaya Spolverato, of the Department of Surgical, Oncological and Gastroenterological Sciences and delegate for Equal Opportunity Policies at UniPD (as well as co-author of the study), has launched a new line of experimental research focused on the mechanisms that could link repeated domestic violence to a higher incidence of some forms of cancer.