• N = Neurobiology/Neuroscience

• Understanding how the brain has developed and adapted to experiences, including trauma and toxic stress.
• Discovering the role of emotions in relation to memory and the brain.
• Recognizing humankind’s capacity available through neuroplasticity.
• Determining how to intervene to support resilience and recovery across the lifespan.
• Understanding the basics of various brain states.

• E = Epigenetics

• The way the body’s genes are expressed and adapt to behaviors, experiences and environments across the life course and trans-generationally.
• Cellular variations that are caused by external, environmental causes that switch genes “on” or “off,” thus making changes in “phenotype” or genetic expression without related changes in the DNA sequence.

• A = Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)

• Certain indicators of significant stressors and challenges encountered within families, communities and systems that, when experienced in the first 18 years of life — particularly with compounding and/or intersectional experiences — can powerfully shape an individual's physical, psychological, social, spiritual, emotional, and behavioral health and well-being.

• R = Resilience

• The capacity to adapt to, prevent, or mitigate the impacts of an adverse event or traumatic experience and recover through survival, adaptability, evolution, and growth despite ongoing stress, challenge and change (Ellis & Dietz, 2017). Resilience can be conceptualized as both a quality of each individual and of a collective group and/or community.
   
   

Sources:

Adapted from the Campaign for Trauma-Informed Policy and Practice website — Wisdom from the Fields of Neuroscience, Epigenetics, ACEs & Resilience (NEAR Science); October 2023.

Ellis, W.R., & Dietz, W. H. (2017). A New Framework for Addressing Adverse Childhood and Community Experiences: The Building Community Resilience Model. Academic Pediatrics, 17(7), S86-S93. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acap.2016.12.011