A scientific team from the Mind, Brain and Behavior Research Center (CIMCYC) at the UGR has studied how gender violence affects the verbal memory of women survivors.
In an international study using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during a word recognition task, women who have suffered gender violence showed difficulties in the initial learning phases, in addition to differences in their brain activation pattern.
Eighty women participated in the study (40 survivors of gender violence and 40 with no history of violence). The results help explain why daily tasks that rely on verbal memory, such as learning new information and recalling lists, can be more fatiguing for victims. The research team is focusing on these neuropsychological sequelae to guide their evaluation and potential rehabilitation treatments.
The Work Has Clinical Implications
The scientific group considers it essential to perform neuropsychological evaluations of gender violence survivors to visualize and rehabilitate the sequelae.
The research detected worse initial learning: survivors recognized fewer words in the first two trials and performed worse in free recall. Furthermore, severity is a factor: greater physical violence correlated with poorer recognition during those early learning phases.
The brain pattern is similarly affected. During recognition, the survivor group showed greater cerebral deactivation in the mPFC/vmPFC, anterior cingulate and caudate (anterior zone of the default mode network: aDMN), consistent with greater effort required to achieve the same performance level as the control group participants.
Previous evidence had already pointed to difficulties in attention and memory following violence; however, studies were lacking that showed cerebral mechanisms in real time, such as during a memory task. This study fills that gap and provides a neurobiological explanation for everyday difficulties experienced by women who have suffered gender violence.
Reference
Pérez-González, M., Daugherty, J., Hidalgo-Ruzzante, N., Pérez-García, M., & Verdejo-Román, J. (2025). Memory recognition performance in women survivors of intimate partner violence: An fMRI study. Journal of Interpersonal Violence. DOI: 10.1177/08862605251350109
Contact
Miguel Pérez García Centro de Investigación Mente, Cerebro y Comportamiento (CIMCYC) Facultad de Psicología Universidad de Granada Teléfono: 655 986 737 Correo electrónico: mperezg@ugr.es
*The CIMCYC held a press conference on November 24 to present this study to media outlets.
