Posttraumatic stress disorder with neurogenic amnesia for the traumatic event

Use of the emotional Stroop to assess psychological trauma following traumatic brain injury

“…Some studies have reported that brain injury may be protective against developing PTSD [1][2][3], as patients may have little or no explicit recollection of the traumatic event. However, other group and case studies have reported PTSD in patients with a range of severity of brain injury [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14], even in patients with very severe brain injury [15]. Further studies have also identified similar levels of ASD in patients with and without a brain injury within the first month following the traumatic event [16].…”

Perseveration of traumatic re-experiencing in PTSD; a cautionary note regarding exposure based psychological treatments for PTSD when head injury and dysexecutive impairment are also present

“…For example, a patient who sustains PTSD simply cannot forget' the traumatic event, while those who sustain traumatic head injury have no recollection of the traumatic event [3]. It has become clear, however, that PTSD and head injury can co-occur; (i) when retrograde and/or PTA are short and some elements of the traumatic event are remembered [4], (ii) when`islands' of traumatic memory within PTA are remembered [2], (iii) when implicit, non-conscious memory of the traumatic event cause re-experiencing of the event without any conscious, declarative memory for it [5], and possibly (vi) when imaginary memories of the event are constructed in response to things the patient has been told or has guessed occurred [1]. There are even a few case studies describing the treatment of patients with the dual diagnosis [6,7].…”

A taxonomy of neurobehavioral functions applied to neuropsychological assessment after head injury

“…PTSD's neuropsychological symptoms can be expressed in the absence of a head injury (De Loos, 1990). Many instances of PTSD contradict the assumption that it cannot occur in the presence of posttraumatic amnesia, particularly retrograde amnesia, since the frightening event has not been recorded (Layton and Wardi-Zonna, 1995). Delayed-onset PTSD is known, but may have been denied or previously unrecognized.…”