Psychological Resilience and Neurocognitive Performance in a Traumatized Community Sample

• Authors: Aliza Wingo, Emory University; Negar Fani, Emory University; Bekh Bradley-Davino, Emory University; Kerry Ressler, Emory University
• Journal Title: Depression and Anxiety
• Volume: Volume 27, Number 8
• Publisher: Wiley: 12 months | 2010-08, Pages 768-774
• Type of Work: Article | Post-print: After Peer Review
• Publisher DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/da.20675
• Subjects: Psychology, Behavioral; Psychology, Cognitive
• Keywords: resilience; neurocognitive performance; trauma; childhood abuse; PTSD; depression; nonverbal memory

Abstract

Background Whether psychological resilience correlates with neurocognitive performance is largely unknown. Therefore, we assessed association between neurocognitive performance and resilience in individuals with a history of childhood abuse or trauma exposure. Methods In this cross-sectional study of 226 highly traumatized civilians, we assessed neurocognitive performance, history of childhood abuse and other trauma exposure, and current depressive and PTSD symptoms. Resilience was defined as having ≥ 1 trauma and no current depressive or PTSD symptoms; non-resilience as having ≥ 1 trauma and current moderate/severe depressive or PTSD symptoms. Results The nonresilient group had a higher percentage of unemployment (p = 0.002) and previous suicide attempts (p <0.0001) than the resilient group. Both groups had comparable education and performance on verbal reasoning, nonverbal reasoning, and verbal memory. However, the resilient group performed better on nonverbal memory (p=0.016) with an effect size of 0.35. Additionally, more severe childhood abuse or other trauma exposure was significantly associated with non-resilience. Better nonverbal memory was significantly associated with resilience even after adjusting for severity of childhood abuse, other trauma exposure, sex, and race using multiple logistic regression (adjusted OR=1.2; p=0.017). Conclusions We examined resilience as absence of psychopathology despite trauma exposure in a highly traumatized, low socioeconomic, urban population. Resilience was significantly associated with better nonverbal memory, a measure of ability to code, store, and visually recognize concrete and abstract pictorial stimuli. Nonverbal memory may be a proxy for emotional learning, which is often dysregulated in stress-related psychopathology, and may contribute to our understanding of resilience.