The Dunedin study followed 1,000 people for thirty years. Twenty years after childhood maltreatment, participants still showed elevated levels of four separate inflammatory markers.
Chronic cortisol degrades mitochondria — the cell's power supply. Energy starvation, cell death, and regional brain atrophy follow.
Because the adversity in Dunedin was documented as it happened rather than recalled later, it is among the strongest evidence in the field.
"This is the pathway by which something that happened at five ends a life at fifty-five."
Danese A et al., Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, 2009. · Palmer C, Brain Energy, 2022, and the primary literature cited therein.