Duke PTSD Study suggests disorder is related to cognitive dysfunction
egg2 by Chris27 of the UK courtesy stockXchng
The results of a just-released Duke University study suggest that people with post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, suffer severe cognitive impairment. Specifically, patients with PTSD who underwent MRI brain scans during a test exhibited signs of impaired cognitive processing.
Combat veterans with PTSD as well as combat veterans without PTSD underwent MRI brain scans while they were shown a series of portraits. During the series, the patients were distracted with other pictures of combat, non-combat pictures, and some non-sensical pictures. When PTSD patients were distracted, they showed activity in their ventral cortex — regions of the brain associated with emotional processing. At the same time, brain areas in the prefrontal cortex, associated with working (short-term memory) and attention, “showed deactivation related to controls.” In otherwords, PTSD patients had a hard-time retaining what they were supposed to retain while they were being emotionally distracted by pictures that had nothing to do with the task at hand.
This discovery corresponds with the well-known symptom of PTSD known as hypervigilance. PTSD sufferers’ hypervigilance, a continual stress response state of “on,” leads us to regard many fairly innocent situations as threatening ones, and over-react, often with rage. The study suggests that PTSD involves a severe disruption in the regular information processing functions of the brain.
Dr. Rajendra Morey of Duke University, one of the study researchers, said a symptom like hypervigilance could be the result of an impaired brain misinterpreting information. While such a study doesn’t help us undo such brain damage, it does suggest that we may eventually be able to “re-program” the brains of PTSD patients so that they process information correctly.
Until then, I guess, we’re still all a bit, um, cracked. Of course my family knew that already. Thank you, I’m here all week.
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I’ve been called far worse than cracked.
Hope you are healing well from your surgery.
Hi, MIchelle … Some thoughts I’m having while musing on this post … The corelation between hypervigilance and distractedness makes perfect sense to me … Trauma survivors having been conditioned to constantly scan the environment with eyes, ears, and kinesthetic senses, it would follow that one’s mind leaps to and fro as well, following and tagging (idenitifying) all the sensory input. Our senses keep constant, shifting track of what’s going on all around us, so our mind will want to investigate and check out all those points of interest … and when one is in the throes of PTSD, *everything* has to be checked out and apprised as a potential threat, especially in unfamiliar or crowed or chaotic environments … There are times for all of us when we have to be keenly aware and scanning (such as when we’re driving a car), and what human isn’t, in this noise-and-media-overloaded world, constantly being distracted? (Aaargh!) It must be in the degree of hypervigilance and distractibility … I mean once upon a time, I could be walking along my small city’s main street at high noon on a weekday — this area’s for shopping … bookstore, camera store, natural food store, and the like — and I’d be scuttling along in a tight rush, looking over my shoulders constantly, staring at every man who was in my proximity, monitoring the cars whizzing along … Whew, it was exhausting. All the anticipatory fear that monitors the hypervigilance is exhausting too.I’ve heard it said that if a person has a disposition toward hypervigilance, it can come in really handy at times. Like if your baby’s about to roll off the change table … if you’re a pilot and have to be constantly scanning your instruments and listening to ground control … if you’re in a dodgy part of town and have to keep your "sensors on full" to detect any threats. People with hypervigilance tend to have very fast reflexes, which can avert collisions with other people (like when you and another person come around a corner from opposite directions … the most hypervigilant person will avoid a crash and instinctively swing away to the side!) and can save vases from crashing to the floor after being batted at by a naughty kitten …
… I’m not surprised one bit by the study results you’ve cited. They help us to make sense of and understand how brains function normally when there’s lots of stimulation both inside and outside of us … and when those processes are in constant demand and on high alert most (if not all) of the time, it’s inevitable, I think, that we’d have difficulty with streamlined cognitive function. Much of the time, when I’m in that high-alert state (and I think some part of my brain is there *all* the time), I can hardly articulate a full thought, or remember something really simple. My mind’s too busy with all its scanning and sensing and keeping tabs on all the shifts and potential dangers going on …Does this make sense to you, Michelle? — This post is so thought-provoking … and it reads to me like another "piece of the puzzle" is clicking into place. Thanks. 
P.S. One of my teachers in the art of psychotherapy taught that our awareness is constantly "shuttling" back and forth between what’s within our minds (our thoughts, perceptions, etc.) and what’s outside our minds (everything and everyone else!) This gifted teacher told us to become first aware of the shuttling itself … pay attention to it and learn its habits … and then we could begin to influence its direction. "Sometimes, you have to move your mind onto a new track," B~ would say … I use that tool now with my hypervigilance … as a reality check. I pay attention to what’s *real* in my environment — I pause, breathe, and lay out my senses as clearly as I can; then I "shuttle" my inner "alert status system" away from its habitual RED ALERT! position — almost always, my own, long-habituated sense that something horrific is about to happen is mistaken … and I am learning to soothe that sense and to modify its reactivity somewhat — it goes ga-ga at the slightest sensory or perceptual anomaly.Whoops — I’m blathering … but lately I’m very interested in the intricate work that’s involved in moderating, regulating, and soothing all the senses / perceptions / functions / behaviors that come from a hyper-alert, exhausted brain …Know what I mean? 
My two favourite "soothing spots" are my bed and my bath … There, I am able to focus on taming my breath, warming my body (my blood temp. is about two degrees cooler than normal, so I am constantly cold), and quieting my eyes and my thoughts …
Tricia: yes, coming along well and now typing with two hands, though not for very long periods. Long enough to blog though!Jaliya: Thanks for all your thoughts. I definitely agree with what you said about hypervigilance. It has to be true that there are only so many "resources" available in the brain and that you’d be using a lot of them to stay vigilant, which would leave very few resources available to, um, think straight, is the only way I can put it. Interesting to me is that the research suggests that our emotional sensitivity is too high, and so we are more distracted by emotional subjects than other people. We are actually too sensitive, just like my mother always said when I was a kid; our hearts, to use a phrase the brain researchers probably would be uncomfortable with, are actually affixed to our sleeves . . . but the actual physical phenomenon is in our brains. We are more focused on emotional stimuli than other kinds, or perhaps, more distracted by them, and because the effects of such stimuli are so dangerous, our "fight or flight" response is activated more often, activating an endless cycle of hyperarousal causing hypervigilance. Phew, no wonder we’re all so tired!
I can definitely relate to the information in this post presenting PTSD as a cognitive dysfunction. I’ve actually had greatest success with therapies that aren’t primarily cognitive (i.e. sandplay / art); and I have wondered if my cognitive impairment is such that I just don’t ‘get’ CBT on a meaningful level at this stage in my healing.