I'm not claiming that the brain chemistry is what leads to PTSD.
Why would it cause changes in some but not others? Could it be the totality of the experience including previously learned values and attitudes?
Maybe. There are also differences in cortisol level curves for men and women, so it could be tied to sex hormones or any number of things, far too numerous to list. As I said, Dr. Adams is ignoring so many factors.
Regardless, if an event can cause a reaction that changes brain chemistry can't future events change brain chemistry also?
I can't do a whole literature review for you--I just provided one example taken from many from a single researcher (Douglas Bremner). The brain structure is also different...Hippocampus research might be particularly relevant to this conversation, in light of the hippocampus differences between homosexual and heterosexual men first reported nearly 20 years ago.
Of course, research is ongoing. Current trials include work to look at neural circuits and potential neurogeneration to help restore structure and function.
I think that's important, because until we can figure out a way to regress people and let their brains develop again, the answer to your question is "no"...just like you can't just change the other things that developed as you became and adult just by wishing them to change.
Bottom line, I disagree with the existentialists theory that we are unchangeable, that we are what we are and that is the end of it.
That's a straw man, as nobody is claiming that.
If the desire is to take meaning from life then it is a good theory. It is all part of the long term goal of acclimating the masses to state control by killing the spirit.
I'm a scientist.* I am looking for what we can learn of objective truth (and I use that non-rigorously--I'm not looking for a philosophical discussion of the meaning of fact, truth, etc.). It's not a religion; I don't have a preconceived idea to which I must fit observations--I believe yldstrk referred to "fitting observations to theories" rather than the reverse as "fluid".
If you are afraid that the truth leads to state control, then I'd respectfully suggest your grasp of the truth is off-base. I am against state control precisely because I believe objective truth shows it to be a negative concept.
Are you a John Cleese fan?
John Cleese - The Scientists - 2008
*Note, I am not a psychiatrist and I have no connection with Emory University or any of the research I cited herein.
Is it possible that the chicken or egg argument enters here? Don't areas of the brain develop as we use them? In fact, that could be the center of the nature or nurture argument in this case.
That's a straw man, as nobody is claiming that.
It was not intended as such since existentialist were discussed in the article.