Zane Floyd grew up in a household where his mother and stepfather frequently abused alcohol and narcotics. Mr. Floyd’s mother was known to have sustained her use of alcohol, cocaine and marijuana, while she was pregnant with Zane. The environment he grew up in was full of trauma and abuse. This can have many adverse impacts on the brain’s development.
A series of research from 2009-2011 used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to analyze the brains of people who went through childhood trauma. They found that those individuals who experienced childhood trauma and neglect showed massive structural changes to their brains. All of the following key parts of the brain showed decreased volumes and\or blood flow.
cerebellum
This region is responsible for emotional control and coordination motor control. Damage to this region can also cause cognitive impairment that can affect memory, learning, and thinking.
Hippocampus
This region is responsible for a brain’s recovery from a stress event. In abuse survivors the hippocampus struggles to return the brain back to normal hormone levels, sometimes leaving the survivor in a state of near permanent stress.
Prefrontal cortex
This brain region is involved in executive functions, such as planning, decision making, short-term memory, personality expression, moderating social behavior and controlling certain aspects of speech and language.
The physical changes in the brain caused by exposure to childhood abuse or trauma underscores a long list of behavioral changes.
Fear Response
One is a persistent fear response. Trauma creates an inability to see the difference between safety and danger. They may find threats where none actually exists.
Executive Function
Executive function or one’s ability to differentiate among conflicting thoughts, determine good and bad, better and best, same and different, future consequences of current activities, working toward a defined goal, prediction of outcomes, expectation based on actions, and social “control” (the ability to suppress urges that, if not suppressed, could lead to socially unacceptable outcomes).
Impulse Control
Lack of impulse and ambition control can manifest in risky behaviors such as drug use or violence.
The abuse Zane Floyd endured in his childhood was trauma that deeply affected his behavior and in part due to this Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder sustained organic brain damage. Mr Floyd’s upbringing played a significant role in his development and should have been presented and considered by the jury who sentenced him to death. Take action to support his clemency petition below!
