In 21st-century armed conflicts, there is no distinction between combatants and civilians, military or civilian infrastructure… They are total wars. 80% of victims in armed conflicts are civilians and 10% will suffer severe mental health problems, developing disabling behaviors that will prevent them from leading a normal life, and a higher percentage of soldiers will require psychiatric and/or psychological treatment after combat (data provided by the World Health Organization).
Marina Mestre, a student of ISEP’s Master’s Degree in Clinical Neuropsychology, focuses her final master’s clinical session on how the context of war affects at a neurological level. A significant part of her study addresses the repercussions of growing up in war contexts. Children’s exposure to violence is correlated with psychological distress, specifically depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In the last 10 years, 2 million minors have died in armed conflicts and about 300,000 are used as soldiers in more than 87 countries worldwide.
Mestre discusses risk factors in child soldiers (abduction, age of enlistment, exposure to violence, etc.) and protective factors (family, social acceptance, education, etc.) and reviews several follow-up studies of these children once they are out of the guerrilla. She highlights a PTSD resilience of 59% pre-intervention and 42% post-intervention. After 15 months of follow-up, PTSD symptomatology decreases, going from 53% to 3%.
Marina Mestre’s presentation includes the neurological repercussions for other key figures in armed conflicts, such as war refugees, who are 10 times more likely to suffer from PTSD than the general population due to psychological stressors such as detentions, insecure housing, denial of work, and problems with immigration officials. In this case, the therapies that have yielded the best results are NET and cognitive-behavioral therapies.
War veterans also present neuropsychological pathologies. The most prevalent are traumatic brain injuries (TBI) and post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD), both associated with high rates of suicide and substance abuse, with neuropsychological changes such as irritability, anxiety, depression, or sleep problems, among others, and neuroanatomical and functional changes. In the United States, 1 out of 6 soldiers needed psychiatric and/or psychological treatment after Iraq. The role of guilt is key in the development of PTSD. Guskiewicz et al. (2007) believe that the high incidence of head trauma suffered by soldiers can interfere with neuropsychological recovery and increase the risk of chronic neuropsychological disability and early-onset dementia.
The student of the Master’s Degree in Clinical Neuropsychology adds in her clinical session the theory of TBI and PTSD comorbidity, and the use of neurotherapy Flexyx Neurotherapy System (FNS) for its treatment, with the aim of modifying the EEG pattern of patients through neurofeedback, by means of an external source. The FNS creates an electromagnetic current that stimulates predetermined parts of our brain through cables with electrodes. The aim is to reduce the amplitude of slow waves (theta) and increase the percentage of time that fast waves (beta) are present to improve the state of attention and, therefore, obtain better results in the rehabilitation of cognitive functions.
Consult Marina Mestre’s presentation Neuroscience in the context of war.