Table of ContentsIntroductionTopic AnalysisReferences IntroductionPosttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental health disorder that will affect approximately 8% of the U.S. adult population at some point in their lives. This statistic does not represent the millions of people who experience trauma each year and do not develop PTSD symptoms. According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ National Center for PTSD, “15 to 43 percent of girls and 14 to 43 percent of boys experience at least one trauma. Among children and adolescents who have suffered trauma, 3 to 15% of girls and 1 to 6% of boys develop post-traumatic stress syndrome. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Topic Analysis Post-traumatic stress disorder develops after an individual experiences or witnesses a life-threatening event. life threatening, such as a natural disaster, a traffic accident, combat or a physical and sexual event. assault. It is important to note that certain traumatic experiences, such as sexual and physical assault, are more likely to lead to PTSD symptoms than other traumatic events. PTSD is characterized by recurrent flashbacks of the traumatic event, hypervigilance, and avoidance of reminders of the traumatic event (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Studies have shown that intense emotional experiences associated with psychological trauma can have long-term consequences on cognitive processes, including memory, planning, problem solving, and attention. With such a large percentage of the population experiencing trauma and developing symptoms of PTSD, the goal of this trial is to understand how PTSD affects our cognitive processes, as well as what treatment methods have proven effective in mitigating the impact of PTSD on cognitive processes. Cognitive theories of stress and PTSD have been widely used to understand stress- and trauma-related injuries, as well as the interaction of emotion and cognition with PTSD symptoms. Researcher Ronnie Janoff-Bulman, in her theory of broken assumptions, explored the impact of trauma on cognition and behavior. She posited that traumatic experiences undermine three fundamental assumptions people have about the world: the world is caring, the self is worthy, and the world is meaningful (1989). When these existing self-word schemas are broken, individuals are faced with a cognitive dilemma: either integrate their traumatic or negative experience into their prior assumptions or revise their old assumptions (1989). Experiencing a violation that goes against one's beliefs results in emotions such as shame, guilt, sadness, and anger, and may cause the individual to attribute false or inaccurate beliefs to the event, such as " I’m not safe anywhere” or “I’ll never be able to interact with people again.” These false beliefs can impact how individuals perceive future experiences, as the lens through which they now view the world is tinged with insecurity, danger, self-questioning, and threat (Figley, 1985 ). According to cognitive theories of stress and PTSD, experiences of trauma can have a significant influence on new experiences and cause a person to interpret situations more negatively. Research examining the impact of trauma on a person's assumptions about themselves and the world has shown that people who have experienced traumahave significantly more negative core assumptions and were significantly more depressed than non-victims, even years after the traumatic experience (Janoff-Bulman, 1989). Therefore, emotional stress can modify the cognitive networks that help us process information about the meaning we give to situations, our perception of our environment and our responses to blockages. PTSD symptoms have been linked to dysfunction of the amygdala, hippocampus, and prefrontal system. cortex. The amygdala is located in the middle of our temporal lobe. Its function is to help detect various threats in the environment and activate the sympathetic nervous system, our "fight or flight" response, to help us respond to perceived threats in our environment. The hippocampus is a brain area involved in learning and long-term memory. The hippocampus is particularly vulnerable to stress. Additionally, the amygdala helps us store new threat-related or emotional memories. The prefrontal cortex is located in the frontal lobe, just behind the forehead. Its function is to help regulate attention, consciousness and emotions, initiate conscious voluntary behavior, make decisions, determine the meaning and emotional significance of events and inhibit or correct dysfunctional reactions. During situations that our brain perceives as threatening, our amygdala activates our "fight or flight" response, releasing adrenaline, norepinephrine, and glucose to prepare our brain and body for action. If the threat persists, the amygdala will communicate with the hypothalamus and pituitary gland to release cortisol, while the middle part of the prefrontal cortex will assess the threat and decide whether to increase or decrease the "fight or flight" response. Although this is a normal brain response to threat, people with PTSD have been found to have a somewhat altered brain response to threatening situations. PTSD impacts multiple brain and body functions. Those who suffer from PTSD react with an over-reactive amygdala and less activated medial prefrontal cortex in response to threat. While the amygdala overreacts to potential threat, the medial prefrontal cortex is weakened in its ability to respond accurately to threatening stimuli. As a result, the overreactive amygdala releases more norepinephrine in response to threat, which is downregulated by the prefrontal cortex. Additionally, an increased amount of cortisol is released by PTSD sufferers in response to stressors. However, decreased cortisol levels have been found to be associated with chronic PTSD. As a result of these different functions, people with PTSD become overly reactive to fear cues and their fear-related neural networks therefore become highly saturated and accessible, responding by default to even minimally stressful events. This has implications for how information is both encoded and retrieved. Cognitive impairments (CI) have been shown to be linked to PTSD symptoms. The exact mechanisms by which these two constructs are linked still elude researchers. However, several studies examining those who were exposed to traumatic events and subsequently developed PTSD have shown CI. Researchers have described PTSD as a memory disorder. Intrusive memories, such as flashbacks, and disorders of memory functioning, such as trauma-related amnesia and memory fragmentation, are two types of memory disorders associated with trauma survivors. People with PTSD, compared to other trauma survivors without PTSD,showed impairments in their general declarative memory for information unrelated to their trauma, and improved memory for trauma-related information. Declarative memory, sometimes called explicit memory, consists of information and events that can be remembered consciously. These findings suggest that trauma-related information interferes with our brain's ability to correctly encode and retrieve neutral information. Impairments in short-term and delayed declarative memory have been found among veterans, rape victims with PTSD, adult survivors of child abuse, and among children and adolescents with PTSD. Additionally, the literature suggests that verbal memory may be more affected than visual memory in people with PTSD. In a large meta-analysis looking specifically at verbal memory, verbal memory was shown to be significantly correlated with PTSD in adults. These findings are important when considering areas of focus in PTSD treatment. Consistent with cognitive theories of PTSD, researchers and clinicians have agreed that PTSD impacts an individual's cognitive functioning to the extent that their attention becomes involuntarily biased toward environmental cues that are reminiscent of a traumatic event. PTSD, compared to other emotion-related disorders, has been found to be associated with the greatest degree of attentional bias. Among crime victims with acute PTSD, a significant attentional bias toward threat-related words was found when participants completed the Stroop task. Similar results were found for OEF/OIF veterans and children and adolescents with PTSD. Additionally, trauma-related Stroop interference has been shown to be positively correlated with PTSD symptom severity. These results suggest that in a person suffering from PTSD, their attention is more captivated by trauma-related material and it is more difficult for them to disengage from perceived trauma-related stimuli. Keep in mind: this is just a sample. Get a custom paper now by our expert writers.Get a Custom Essay PTSD has also been shown to negatively influence an individual's ability to solve problems. Specifically, higher PTSD scores were found to predict poorer problem-solving skills. One hypothesis for why PTSD leads to decreased problem-solving skills is due to the fact that people with PTSD have an overgeneralized autobiographical memory, which leads individuals to have fewer experiences to call upon when attempting to effectively resolve a problem. Further research is needed to understand the mechanisms that facilitate this association, but it is an important deficit to understand when working clinically with PTSD.ReferencesAmerican Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). Washington, DC: Author. Ashley, V., Honzel, N., Larsen, J., Justus, T., and Swick, D. (2013). Attentional bias for trauma-related words: Exaggerated emotional Stroop effect in Afghanistan and Iraq war veterans with PTSD. BMC Psychiatry, 13(1), 86. Bremner, J.D. (2006). Traumatic stress: effects on the brain. Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience, 8(4), 445. Bremner, JD, Scott, TM, Delaney, RC, Southwick, SM, Mason, JW, Johnson, DR, ... & Charney, DS (1993). Short-term memory deficits in posttraumatic stress disorder. The American journal of psychiatry./10.1037/0033- 2909.120.1.3