Ivette Noriega, a postdoctoral scholar at the Begun Center for Violence Prevention Research and Education, co-wrote an article titled “Emotional memory processing in post-traumatic stress disorder affected Colombian youth.” The piece was published in the International Journal of Psychology.
In past decades, Colombia has experienced high levels of armed conflict, creating an environment of chronic stress and an increased incidence of PTSD in children. Noriega and her colleagues conducted their study on 23 Colombian PTSD-affected youth. The findings suggest a deficit in executive functioning for the integration of emotionally laden stimuli, perhaps induced as a by-product of the participants’ traumatic experience.