Let's say good morning now to you see San Diego Professor got Mishra. Good morning, doctor Mishra.
Good morning Amy, it's good to be here.
Thank you so much for joining us this morning. There's a new study out and it really caught my eye because so many people in southern California have been affected by the wildfires and Pacific Palisades and Altadena. I mean, thousands of people lost absolutely everything, and we had been talking at the time and after that the effects of the fires are going to be much more far reaching
than we can even imagine. And your research shows that trauma suffered by wildfire victims is even affecting how.
We think that's correct.
Okay, can you tell us a little bit about your research and what you've found out.
Sure, we have been studying California's deadliest wildfire today, the campfire from twenty eighteen that really wiped out the town of Paradise for many years now, and we've looked at mental health impacts that include symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, and depression, and we've shown that alongside these mood symptoms that can also be cognitive impacts. In twenty twenty three, we published a first study showing that individuals who are
exposed to the buyers are highly distractable. They're unable to pay attention to the task at hand, and everything in the environment seems really threatening and so everything is salient and the individual feels highly distractable to that information. Now, we also wanted to study that how all of this cognitive impact then plays out on decision making. Every day, we have to make important decisions and we have to really track information to say what is the better decision
for us in the long term. I've given the examples of say you want to take on a job right now, which may be a small time job, versus say you want to get some education and then get a bigger job later on, and you have to make that important decision for yourself what is better for you in the long term. Similarly, people who are in disaster recovery, you
have to make many important decisions for rebuilding. Therefore, studying decision making is very important, and we found that that ability specifically impacted in people who are directly impacted by the fires, directly exposed to the fires, and this impact, unfortunately, can be long lasting, even when people had experienced the fires. A year before this decision making impact was observed.
Okay, doctor Mischer. So you're saying it's impacting decision making. Is it that people can't make decisions, can't stick to decisions, or are making bad decisions, or all of the above.
It's more that they're making bad decisions. They're making decisions that are more impulsive that would be beneficial in the short term but not beneficial in the long term.
Okay, And so why is this happening. Is it because there's too much up in the air and because they've lost everything and they just don't know which direction to turn, and so, like you said, they might make something more impulsive to get a quick fix as opposed to thinking it out for the long term.
Yes, that why is part of the research. We've shown that brain function can really be impacted after suffering a catastrophic event. In fact, this has been called the fire brain phenomena, where the brain really gets hyper aroused, hyper alert, and it's almost as if it's highly active and looking out for threats all the time, even though they're no
longer threats. After the fire, the brain stays in that wired state and is unable to make the right decisions even though it's trying to make that effort, and this effect can be long lasting, and these brain impacts then are making our cognitive abilities worse.
That's so interesting, and doctor Mischrad, this affects I mean tens of thousands of people directly, and then thousands more family members and friends who know people who've lost homes and that kind of thing. So is there anything that you can give advice, give some advice on, like how do you choose to make better decisions?
Absolutely? I think person only. I think this is a time when we make decisions together with the family members. I would really recommend people not make important decisions, especially where they have to choose between options that are good for now versus good for the long term. Those kinds of decisions, critical decisions, rebuilding, recovery decisions, those kinds of
decisions they should make with friends and family together. Especially Also, people who have not been impacted by the fires really take the recommendations of those family members in mind. All community, families and friends are here to help people who have suffered from such unfortunate disaster impacts, and our study really highlights that we should be out there helping out our community members making important decisions.
It takes a village. Doctor Gioki mishra At, you see, San Diego. Thank you so much for the information. As I said, I came across this and I was like, wow, I mean, we just still don't know how much these fires are going to affect people now and for years to come. So thank you so much for the information. We appreciate it. Is there somewhere we can find out more information about it? Find the study.
Yes, the paper was published in Nature Scientific Reports in mid April and it's freely available. And yeah, thank you for spreading the word about it.
All right, thanks again doctor Gioki mishra At, you see San Diego.