Index IntroductionTopic AnalysisReferences IntroductionPosttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental health disorder that will impact approximately 8% of the U.S. adult population at some point in their life. This statistic does not represent the millions of individuals 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% of girls and 14% to 43% of boys experience at least one trauma. Among children and adolescents who have experienced trauma, 3% to 15% of girls and 1% to 6% of boys develop PTSD.” Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Topic Analysis PTSD develops after an individual experiences or witnesses a life-threatening event such as a natural disaster, car accident, combat, or physical and sexual problems assault. It is important to note that some traumatic experiences, such as sexual and physical assault, have the propensity to cause PTSD symptoms more than other traumatic events. PTSD is characterized by recurring flashbacks of the traumatic event, hypervigilance, and avoidance of memories of the traumatic event (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Studies have shown that the intense emotional experiences associated with psychological trauma can have long-term consequences on cognitive processes, including memory, planning, problem solving, and attention. Given that such a high percentage of the population has experienced trauma and developed symptoms of PTSD, the goal of this essay is to understand how PTSD affects our cognitive processes, as well as what methods of treatment have proven effective in attenuating the impact that post-traumatic stress disorder has on cognitive processes. function. Cognitive theories of stress and PTSD have been used extensively to understand stress and trauma injuries and the interaction of emotion and cognition with PTSD symptoms. Researcher Ronnie Janoff-Bulman, in her theory of broken assumptions, explored the impact trauma has on cognition and behavior. He hypothesized that traumatic experiences damage three fundamental assumptions that people have about the world: the world is benevolent, the self is worthy, and the world is meaningful (1989). When these existing self and word schemas are disrupted, individuals experience a cognitive dilemma to deal with. they either integrate their traumatic or negative experience into their previous assumptions or revise their old assumptions (1989). Experiencing a violation that goes against one's beliefs leads to 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 am not safe anywhere" or "I lighthouse". never being able to relate to people again. These false beliefs can influence how individuals perceive future experiences, as the lens from which they now view the world is colored by insecurity, danger, questions about themselves, and threat (Figley, 1985). According to cognitive theories of stress and PTSD, previous trauma experiences can have a significant influence on new experiences and cause a person to interpret situations differently.more negative way. Research examining the impact of trauma on a person's assumptions about themselves and the world has shown that individuals who experienced trauma had significantly more negative baseline assumptions and were significantly more depressed than non-victims, even years later that the traumatic experience occurred (Janoff-Bulman, 1989). Therefore, emotional stress can change cognitive networks that help us process information about the meaning we apply to situations, our perception of the environment, and our responses to stumli. PTSD symptoms have been linked to dysfunction in the amygdala, hippocampus, and prefrontal region. bark. The amygdala is located in the center 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 react to perceived threats in our environment. The hippocampus is an area of ​​the brain 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, awareness and emotions, initiate conscious voluntary behaviors, 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 continues, the amygdala will communicate with the hypothalamus and pituitary gland to release cortisol, while the central part of the prefrontal cortex will evaluate the threat and decide to increase or decrease the “fight or flight” response. Although this is a normal brain response to a threat, individuals with PTSD have been found to have a somewhat altered brain response to threatening situations. PTSD affects multiple brain and body functions. Those who suffer from PTSD respond with an overreactive amygdala and a less activated medial prefrontal cortex in response to a threat. While the amygdala overreacts to a potential threat, the medial prefrontal cortex is weakened in its ability to accurately respond to threatening stimuli. As a result, the hyperreactive amygdala releases more norepinephrine in response to threat, which is downregulated by the prefrontal cortex. Additionally, greater amounts of cortisol are released by those suffering from PTSD in response to stressors. However, decreased cortisol levels have been found to be associated with chronic PTSD. As a result of these different functions, individuals with PTSD become hyperreactive to fear signals and thus their fear-related neural networks become highly saturated and accessible, responding by default to even minimally stressful events. This has implications for how information is encoded and retrieved. Cognitive impairment (CI) has been found to be linked to PTSD symptoms. The exact mechanisms through which these two constructs are linked are still puzzling researchers. However, numerous studies that have examined those who were exposed to traumatic events and subsequently developed a disorder frompost-traumatic stress showed IC. Researchers have described PTSD as a memory impairment disorder. Intrusive memories, such as flashbacks, and impoverished memory functioning, such as trauma-related amnesia and memory fragmentation, are two types of memory impairments that have been linked to trauma survivors. Those with PTSD, compared to other trauma survivors without PTSD, showed deficiencies in their general declarative memory for non-trauma-related information and enhanced memory for trauma-related information. Declarative memory, sometimes called explicit memory, consists of information and events that can be consciously recalled. These findings suggest that trauma-related inputs interfere with our brain's ability to correctly encode and retrieve neutral information. Deficiencies in both short-term and delayed declarative memory have been found in veterans, rape victims with PTSD, adult survivors of child abuse, and among children and adolescents with PTSD. Furthermore, the literature suggests that verbal memory may be more affected than visual memory for people with PTSD. In a large meta-analysis that specifically examined verbal memory, verbal memory was shown to be significantly related to PTSD in adults. These findings are important when considering areas of interest for the treatment of PTSD. In congruence with cognitive theories of PTSD, researchers and clinicians have agreed that PTSD impacts the individual's cognitive functioning as attention is involuntarily biased toward environmental cues that are reminiscent of an event. traumatic. PTSD, compared to other emotion-related disorders, has been found to have the greatest degree of attentional distortion associated with it. 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 war veterans and children and adolescents with PTSD. Additionally, trauma-related Stroop interference has been shown to positively correlate with PTSD symptom severity. These findings suggest that for someone with PTSD, their attention is more captured by trauma-related material and it is more difficult for them to disengage from perceived trauma-related stimuli. Please note: this is just an example. Get a custom paper now from our expert writers. PTSD has been shown to negatively affect an individual's problem-solving ability. Specifically, higher PTSD scores have been found to predict poorer problem-solving skills. One hypothesis as to why PTSD results in a decline in problem-solving skills is because people with PTSD have overgeneralized autobiographical memory, leading individuals to have fewer experiences to refer to when trying to effectively solve a problem. More research is needed to understand the/10.1037/0033- 2909.120.1.3