The purpose of this study was to investigate brain studies of women with intimate partner violence. Previous studies about traumatic brain injury and cognitive function in battered women were examined. Several studies were reviewed with pivotal research results in brain structure/function of battered women using brain imaging. Head injuries and attempted strangulation injuries can result in traumatic brain injury. Battered women showed cognitive dysfunctions in executive function, working memory, and attention. Battered women may have an impaired ability to make a rational decision with frontal lobe damage. Battered women had hyperresponsiveness in amygdala to fearful stimuli and poor emotional regulation with deficit of anterior cingulate cortex. The chronic nature of intimate partner violence can cause psychological stress and physiological stress, which can suppress immune system with hyperreactivity of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. The limitations of the studies and directions for the future research were discussed.
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