Executive Function
In the first chapter, the relationship between traumatic stress and the broad domain of executive function (EF) and their neurofunctional correlates is discussed. The phenomenology of this relationship is reviewed in terms of the preclinical lesion and adult neuroimaging studies that have established a link between stress and deficits in executive functions. The myriad executive functions that have demonstrated vulnerability to traumatic stress are categorized as either updating, inhibiting, or shifting. Considerations from each domain establish clearly that the experience of trauma and the manifestation of posttraumatic stress symptoms can lead to or predispose individuals to deficits throughout the brain, resulting in slower processing speed, the formation of negative decision-making biases, and difficulties in emotional regulation, attention regulation, and response inhibition. The transition from psychometric cognitive tests to structural and functional neuroimaging and future directions for the study of executive function are also discussed.