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PTSD and the Brain
July 8, 2010 Updated Jul 8, 2010 at 4:03 PM EDT

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: it's often associated with war veterans and accident victims. But today, psychologists are diagnosing it in children across the inner cities of america and that may put them at an even greater disadvantage. Inside the cities of america, kids hear crying, shouting, sirens and gun shots. Joshua Kaufman, a Psychiatric Social Worker, says that "Young people in this day-and-age are exposed to much higher levels of community violence than they ever were previously." That exposure has a devastating affect on a child's mental health. Dr. Mike Ziegler, who specializes in Emergency Pediatrics, says that "For some people, when they experience a traumatic event, the memories of these events get fixed in their brains to the point where this stress response just continues over and over and over again."
According to a study from Stanford University, PTSD can damage the hippocampus, the part of the brain used for processing memory and emotion. Kaufman adds that "Trauma impacts our ability to learn, it impacts our ability to concentrate, it impacts our ability to focus on what's happening in front of us." The solution, Kaufman says, is to get kids talking: "Let's talk about it, let's talk about it, let's talk about it. Because while we're trying to protect our young people by keeping information from them, or by not talking about it, what ends up happening is that in the young people it builds up inside."
Symptoms of PTSD include insomnia, avoidance, irritability and depression.

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