Verbal Declarative Memory Study

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder can do a range of things to the brain. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder makes the victim continuously remember the event. It was originally known as “shell shock” where vets were struggling going through daily life. Finally after the Vietnam War Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder was “identified and given its name.” When these discoveries were made, proper treatment was then given to the victims. Research shows that

Those diagnosed with PTSD have shown a reduction in the volume of the hippocampus. The hippocampus helps humans remember new memories and then be able to recall them later, and also helps identify between past and present memories. The amygdala is another section of the brain affected by PTSD, and the amygdala is responsible for processing emotions and fear. The ventromedial prefrontal cortex is shown to have a decreased size in cases. The ventromedial prefrontal cortex regulates negative emotions like stress, anxiety, and fear. The strange behaviours of the patients diagnosed with PTSD can be explained by the damage to the brain. “Researchers believe that the brain changes caused by PTSD increase the tendency of a person developing other psychotic and mood disorders” (brainblogger.com). The brain is like a machine made up of small parts, and if one of these parts break, the machine does not function

Traumatic events also produce profound and lasting changes in physiological arousal, emotion, cognition, and memory. Moreover, traumatic events may result in the severance of these normally integrated functions from one another. Traumatized individuals may also suffer from the memories of the tragic or horrifying experiences they have undergone. Frequently, as a result of these many symptoms, it becomes inevitable for the individual to develop certain complications associated with trauma-related disorders, such as posttraumatic stress disorder.

At least 50% of all adults and children are exposed to a psychologically traumatic event (such as a life-threatening assault or accident, humanmade or natural disaster, or war). As many as 67% of trauma survivors experience lasting psychosocial impairment, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD); panic, phobic, or generalized anxiety disorders; depression; or substance abuse.(Van der Kolk, et al, 1994) Symptoms of PTSD include persistent involuntary re-experiencing of traumatic distress, emotional numbing and detachment from other people, and hyperarousal (irritability, insomnia, fearfulness, nervous agitation). PTSD is linked to structural neurochemical changes in the central nervous system which may have a direct

PTSD is a serious issue faced throughout the military and the veteran population and has been recognized as such by the U.S. Government, the Department of Defense, and both the Department of Veteran Affairs and private-sector health care professionals. With this issue being in the spotlight a large amount of time, money and resources have been dedicated to the research of PTSD. The research conducted as of today has revealed a tremendous amount on how memories are

Veterans suffering from PTSD are unable to integrate the memories of the trauma properly. Amnesia is likely to be caused by excessive norepinephrine (NE) or vasopressin release at the time of the trauma. Memories of the trauma can also be triggered by physiological arousal. They tend to relive the past and misinterpret innocuous stimuli as potential threats. They are also more sensitive to sounds. Neutralizing stimuli in the environment to attend to relevant tasks is very difficult. Instead they tend to shut down to compensate. This leads to decreased involvement in ordinary, everyday life (Van der Kolk, B., McFarlane, A., Weisaeth, L., 1996).

The first study due for consideration is that by Truedau et al, published in The Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences in 1998. The study centers on the aforementioned overlap between sufferers of PTSD and sufferers of traumatic brain injury in order to determine accurate ways of screening for the latter of these conditions. The study presents a quantitative assessment of specific medical screening results in order to produce an empirically sound mode of predicting some of the negative repercussions of untreated traumatic brain injury. According to Trudeau et al (1998), "combat veterans with a remote history of blast injury have persistent electroencephalographic features of traumatic brain injury as well as attentional problems. The authors hypothesize that these constitute a

Morris states that PTSD is often thought of as being a syndrome of remembering things too well. He adds that “the ones who ‘forget,’ they suffer later” (Morris 35).

Various models have been developed to explain the memory and concentration problems manifested by patients affected by post traumatic stress disorder. These models relate the cognitive problems with these patients with the changes in the brain structures that function in learning and memory. The first model is described as fear structure, whereby the brain of the affected individuals become programmed to process information associated with the threatening experience and subsequent physiological, physical and behavioral responses. Another information processing model is based on cognitive theory, with an assumption that the disorder progresses only if a person perceives the traumatic incident in a manner that makes the incident to become threatening after it has taken place. The perception of the trauma as being present results into intrusions and reliving symptoms, anxiety, and over alertness. Subsequently, the affected individual tries to decrease perceptions of the threat through behavioral and cognitive modifications, although these changes further perpetuate the symptoms (Rosen, 2004).

Our most vivid memories are those tied with strong emotional memory components. For those suffering from Post-Traumatic-Stress Disorder (PTSD), the emotional component of a memory makes recalling certain life events painful and debilitating. PTSD is an anxiety disorder that develops from the exposure to a traumatic event and often seen in comorbid patients also afflicted with alcoholism, depression, and general anxiety. Because this disorder is so debilitating, finding prevention treatments becomes essential to ensuring the mental health of so many individuals world-wide.

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a crippling anxiety disorder most commonly in which an individual is exposed to a traumatic event and suffer severe distress as a result of that event. Commonly associated with combat veterans, PTSD can result from a variety of traumatic events. Symptoms of PTSD include: reliving the event and intrusive thoughts, avoidance of reminders of trauma, and hyperarousal (Warner, Warner, Appenzeller, & Hoge, 2013).

Researchers, J. Douglas Bremner, Katherine Krause Shobe and John K. Kihlstrom establish in their study on the repressed mind of victims that the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) that women of childhood sexual abuse exhibited poorer memory for words that had been recently studied and increased insertions of alternative words other than critical lures (Bremner, Shobe, Kihlstrom, 2000). Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) according to the Mayo Clinic, "Is a mental health condition that 's triggered by a terrifying event — either experiencing it or witnessing it. Symptoms may include flashbacks, nightmares and severe anxiety, as well as uncontrollable thoughts about the event" (Mayo, 2016).

Ehring, Ehlers, and Glucksman (2008) wanted to examine the cognitive variables that predict emotional disorders, including PTSD. The

National Institute of Mental Health (2001, p.5) reported that researches have shown how PTSD alters different chemicals in the brain, “abnormal levels of brain chemicals that affect coping behavior, learning and memory as well as the metabolisms and blood flow in the brain.” When Meltzer et al., (2009) examined the correlation of the children who exposed to DV and childhood mental health, they found children who have exposed to DV have a higher risk of developing PTSD than the ones who never had any exposure to DV. The researchers implied that these PTSD symptoms may persist into early adolescence or later on into their adulthood. Furthermore, they recognized that children who show more symptoms of depression and anxiety were the ones

The participants of this study was 80 veterans who served as part of Operation Enduring and Iraqi Freedom(OEF/IF). 32 of them was diagnosed as PTSD and 48 of them was not. 16 words list was given in the test, 12 of them contains neutral words, and 5 of the contains traumatic words. Each word list contains 15 words, and each word list contains a nonpresented lure. For example, cold is the lure for a list contains winter and snow. During the test, veterans will listen 3 neutral list and 1 traumatic word in each section. Between each section, they were asked to do free recall or math problems to preclude rehearsal in working memory. After the participants listened all 12 word lists, they were asked to complete a recognition test. They were asked to identify did some of the word occurred in the word lists. The recognition test record results as three types. If a word appeared and was identified correctly, it was counted as accurate. A “false alarm” will be recorded if a words not on the list was identified as “appeared”. And if a lure was identified as “appeared”, it will be count as false memory. In this study, independent variables were the veterans with or without PTSD and the depend