In November 2018, the Camp Fire burned a total of 239 square miles, destroyed 18,804 structures and killed 85 people, making it the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history.
In November 2018, the Camp Fire burned a total of 239 square miles, destroyed 18,804 structures and killed 85 people, making it the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history.
Three years later, researchers at University of California San Diego, published a novel study that looked at the psychological consequences, finding that exposure to “climate trauma” for affected residents resulted in increased and chronic mental health problems, such as post-traumatic stress disorder and depression.
In a new study, published in the January 18, 2023 online issue of PLOS Climate, senior author Jyoti Mishra, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry at UC San Diego School of Medicine, director of the Neural Engineering and Translation Labs at UC San Diego, and associate director of the UC Climate and Mental Health Initiative, delved deeper with her colleagues. The study team reported that in a subset of persons exposed to the Camp Fire, significant differences in cognitive functioning and underlying brain activity were revealed using electroencephalography (EEG).
Specifically, the researchers found that fire-exposed individuals displayed increased activity in the regions of the brain involved in cognitive control and interference processing — the ability to mentally cope with unwanted and often disturbing thoughts.
Read more at University of California - San Diego
Image: The Camp Fire wildfire in 2018 burned a total of 239 square miles, destroyed 18,804 structures and killed 85 people. Researchers say it also produced lingering brain trauma in some of those exposed to the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history. (Image courtesy of NIST)
