Trauma and the Brain: A Look at How Traumatic Events Shape Memory and Perception
By Kendall Wolz
Mental Health and Wellness Manager at Mosaic Georgia
At the age of 13, I disclosed years of sexual abuse by my stepfather. Unfortunately, the rural area I lived in did not yet follow the robust Child Advocacy Center model that is the protocol today. This meant that I had multiple interviews by various investigative parties. I can recall extreme frustration when I was asked “when did the abuse start, how old were you, how many times did it happen?”
I felt intense fear that people would not believe me because I could not give the answers to those seemingly simple questions. The reality is that my brain did not file the memory of the first incident, or subsequent incidents of abuse as a biographical memory where the date and incident number were important.
Instead, what I could tell investigators included: the show, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, was playing in the background, what my favorite pair of pajamas I wore most frequently looked like, what the abuse felt like to my body, and the fear that swept over me.
This is an example of how trauma memories are often stored.
Let’s explore how this happens.
The Brain: One Fascinating Organ
Weighing on average 3 pounds, the brain is the most complex organ within the body. It processes every piece of information received through the five senses and communicates with the rest of the body to keep us safe and alive.
How do experiences impact our brains?
Decades of research have shown that trauma has a significant negative impact on various structures within the brain. Before discussing those impacts, here is a look at the healthy brain functions that are harmed by trauma.
- Brain Stem: Responsible for our survival instincts and functions such as heart rate, respiration, blood pressure, consciousness, and sleep.
- Midbrain: Stores memory, processes emotions, and serves as a connection between our cortex and our brain stem.
- Cortex: The most highly evolved structure of the brain, responsible for cognitive processing, decision making, and controlling thoughts and emotions.
Fight or Flight Leads the Way
When a person experiences an actual or perceived threat to their safety or wellbeing, the lower part of the brain, the brain stem, becomes highly activated to ensure survival. It may respond to the threat in a variety of ways.
An event like seeing a bear on a hike, witnessing a crime, or experiencing a sexual assault may elicit a desire to either fight with intensity, get away from the situation as quickly as possible, become frozen or paralyzed, fawn (go along with what is happening), or faint.
If the traumatic or threatening event is survived through a fight/flight/freeze/fawn/faint response, the brain has performed its job well.
How our brain responds to trauma is not a cognitive choice.
Temporarily Turning Off the Lights
Decision making happens in the prefrontal cortex, near the forehead – sometimes referred to as the “thinking area” of the brain. When a threat is perceived and the body goes into survival mode, the cortex essentially goes offline, halting its ability to communicate with other parts of the brain. This conserves energy and allows the body to focus on survival, until the perceived threat is gone. For example, during a traumatic event the brain would not have the ability to think through and solve a word problem, or the body would not put effort into digesting food. Until the threat subsides, the brain and body direct their many resources strictly towards survival.
The Brain’s Megaphone
What alerts the body to go into fight or flight mode? A small, almond shaped structure deep within the midbrain called the amygdala is responsible for sounding the alarm. The amygdala sends messages to other parts of the brain that activate various elements of the fight or flight response when a potential threat is present. Functions like increased heart rate and the release of stress hormones allow the body to get itself to safety.
It is in this part of the brain where memories are attached to emotion. Traumatic memories get stuck in the emotional memory of the amygdala rather than reaching the hippocampus, the area of the brain that records the details – like the what, when and where of an event.
So for survivors the “memory” of a trauma often emerges as a strong emotional or sensory experience. Unfortunately, trauma shuts down our ability to integrate events episodically which creates a barrier to recalling things like dates and locations.
This is why trauma survivors often keenly remember a smell, like the smoke of a house burning or the cologne of a rapist, but not what time it was when the trauma occurred.
The Trauma of Disclosing Trauma
Without understanding what happens within the brain during a trauma, there exists a risk of doing more harm to people who have experienced horrific events. When survivors are expected to recall the traumatic event in an episodic manner (the when, where, why), they become set up for judgement, disappointment, frustration, and even disbelief despite the reality that the memory is not consolidated and stored in a way that can be recollected.
However, opportunities for people to disclose their memory of what occurred can be provided by eliciting the information they can recall – how they felt, what their senses noticed – while assessing whether they can also access any of the biographical data.
As this information becomes more accessible and understood by the general population, an opportunity presents to move away from some of the stigmas and widespread misconceptions that plague survivors.
Helpful and Informative Sources
A video illustrating how trauma affects the brain can be seen here.
The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk
Dr. Seigel’s hand model of the brain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-m2YcdMdFw
https://www.verywellmind.com/the-effect-of-ptsd-on-the-brain-2797643
At the age of 13, I disclosed years of sexual abuse by my stepfather. Unfortunately, the rural area I lived in did not yet follow the robust Child Advocacy Center model that is the protocol today. This meant that I had multiple interviews by various investigative parties. I can recall extreme frustration when I was asked “when did the abuse start, how old were you, how many times did it happen?”
I felt intense fear that people would not believe me because I could not give the answers to those seemingly simple questions. The reality is that my brain did not file the memory of the first incident, or subsequent incidents of abuse as a biographical memory where the date and incident number were important.
Instead, what I could tell investigators included: the show, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, was playing in the background, what my favorite pair of pajamas I wore most frequently looked like, what the abuse felt like to my body, and the fear that swept over me.
This is an example of how trauma memories are often stored.
Let’s explore how this happens.
The Brain: One Fascinating Organ
Weighing on average 3 pounds, the brain is the most complex organ within the body. It processes every piece of information received through the five senses and communicates with the rest of the body to keep us safe and alive.
How do experiences impact our brains?
Decades of research have shown that trauma has a significant negative impact on various structures within the brain. Before discussing those impacts, here is a look at the healthy brain functions that are harmed by trauma.
- Brain Stem: Responsible for our survival instincts and functions such as heart rate, respiration, blood pressure, consciousness, and sleep.
- Midbrain: Stores memory, processes emotions, and serves as a connection between our cortex and our brain stem.
- Cortex: The most highly evolved structure of the brain, responsible for cognitive processing, decision making, and controlling thoughts and emotions.
Fight or Flight Leads the Way
When a person experiences an actual or perceived threat to their safety or wellbeing, the lower part of the brain, the brain stem, becomes highly activated to ensure survival. It may respond to the threat in a variety of ways.
An event like seeing a bear on a hike, witnessing a crime, or experiencing a sexual assault may elicit a desire to either fight with intensity, get away from the situation as quickly as possible, become frozen or paralyzed, fawn (go along with what is happening), or faint.
If the traumatic or threatening event is survived through a fight/flight/freeze/fawn/faint response, the brain has performed its job well.
How our brain responds to trauma is not a cognitive choice.
Temporarily Turning Off the Lights
Decision making happens in the prefrontal cortex, near the forehead – sometimes referred to as the “thinking area” of the brain. When a threat is perceived and the body goes into survival mode, the cortex essentially goes offline, halting its ability to communicate with other parts of the brain. This conserves energy and allows the body to focus on survival, until the perceived threat is gone. For example, during a traumatic event the brain would not have the ability to think through and solve a word problem, or the body would not put effort into digesting food. Until the threat subsides, the brain and body direct their many resources strictly towards survival.
The Brain’s Megaphone
What alerts the body to go into fight or flight mode? A small, almond shaped structure deep within the midbrain called the amygdala is responsible for sounding the alarm. The amygdala sends messages to other parts of the brain that activate various elements of the fight or flight response when a potential threat is present. Functions like increased heart rate and the release of stress hormones allow the body to get itself to safety.
It is in this part of the brain where memories are attached to emotion. Traumatic memories get stuck in the emotional memory of the amygdala rather than reaching the hippocampus, the area of the brain that records the details – like the what, when and where of an event.
So for survivors the “memory” of a trauma often emerges as a strong emotional or sensory experience. Unfortunately, trauma shuts down our ability to integrate events episodically which creates a barrier to recalling things like dates and locations.
This is why trauma survivors often keenly remember a smell, like the smoke of a house burning or the cologne of a rapist, but not what time it was when the trauma occurred.
The Trauma of Disclosing Trauma
Without understanding what happens within the brain during a trauma, there exists a risk of doing more harm to people who have experienced horrific events. When survivors are expected to recall the traumatic event in an episodic manner (the when, where, why), they become set up for judgement, disappointment, frustration, and even disbelief despite the reality that the memory is not consolidated and stored in a way that can be recollected.
However, opportunities for people to disclose their memory of what occurred can be provided by eliciting the information they can recall – how they felt, what their senses noticed – while assessing whether they can also access any of the biographical data.
As this information becomes more accessible and understood by the general population, an opportunity presents to move away from some of the stigmas and widespread misconceptions that plague survivors.
Helpful and Informative Sources
A video illustrating how trauma affects the brain can be seen here.
The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk
Dr. Seigel’s hand model of the brain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-m2YcdMdFw
https://www.verywellmind.com/the-effect-of-ptsd-on-the-brain-2797643