Chronic stress can have a serious impact on our physical as well as psychological health due to sustained high levels of the chemicals released in the ‘fight or flight’ response.
I've studied the neurobiological implications in abused children, and i found that in those children is noticed a dysregulation of the "Hypothalamic - Pituitary - Adrenal" axis and particularly anomalous levels of Cortisol (Hart, Gunnar, Cicchetti, 1995).
The authors hypothesize that the reduced activity of the HPA axis may have an adaptive role cause it protects against the consequences of a chronic hypercortisolism (Cicchetti e Rogosch, 2001).
Can this alteration have effects on social skills? Are there neurobiological evidences?
