Association of Worse Cognition, Mental Health and Increased Frontal Theta Activity in Comfort Women

Abstract

Traumatic stress experiences may produce long-lasting changes in brain connectivity and functioning. The present study recruited a group of suffered from sexual slavery 80 years ago, during World War II. When compared to age matched control group, the comfort women group exhibited worse cognitive performance, impaired sleep quality, and persistent mood abnormalities. In addition, EEG analyses revealed higher frontal lobe theta activities in comfort women group, which correlated positively to the intensity of stress exposure. These results are consistent with findings based on recent traumatic events and demonstrate the long-lasting wide-spread effect of traumatic stress on human lifespan. Funding Statement: The study is supported by NSFC grant (71622013, 71473117, 31771215). TY is also sponsored by Shanghai Rising-Star Program. Declaration of Interests: None declared for all authors. Ethics Approval Statement: The study has been approved by the Ethic Committee of Nanjing University. All protocols in present study followed the guidelines of Declaration of Helsinki.