Stephan Rudzki
Canberra Sports Medicine, Australia
Biography
Dr Rudzki spent 30 years in the Australian Army and retired with the rank of Brigadier in 2014. He is currently in Sports Medicine Private Practice. He has been researching the role of autonomic physiology in Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) for the last 9 years and has published two papers on the subject.
Research Interest
The term Stress was first used by Hans Selye in the 1920’s and he borrowed it from engineering. Selye described three physical occurrences as a result of stress; adrenal hypertrophy, thymus atrophy and peptic ulcer. Stress has been defined as the biological response to threat and adrenal hypertrophy and thymus atrophy imply a key role for cortisol immunosuppression. Threat in early childhood can take many forms; malnutrition, disease, poverty, bullying, abuse or neglect. These threats generate a profound physiological effect which can lead to behavioural or psychological responses. These behavioural responses can be viewed as adaptive, in that they seek to avoid or mitigate threat. Adaptations require epigenetic changes to phenotype and chronic inflammation can induce epigenetic changes.