While working within the Chicago Police Department, Rebecca Campbell (PhD, Professor, Michigan State University) was told by a detective that "most victims lie" about sexual assault. She, on the other hand, was certain that most victims told the truth. Wondering how both she and the detective could be so certain, she began to do the research to find out. Her work examines how the legal and medical and mental health systems respond to the needs of adult, adolescent and pediatric victims of sexual assault. [Warning for graphic descriptions of assaults]When she asked how they can be so certain that victims are making a false report, police said:"The stuff they say makes no sense.""I see them hedge, making it up as they go along.""They lie all the time. I can tell.""No way it's true. No one would act like that if it's true.""They can't get their story straight."A fifteen year veteran police officer commented, "So no I don't always believe them and yeah I let them know that. And then they say 'Nevermind. I don't want to do this.' Okay, then. Complainant refused to prosecute; case closed."As Campbell notes, "What we know from criminal justice research is that we have a problem with case attrition. Most cases don’t move very far through the system. It’s happening very early on. And now we have some insight into how it’s happening, and we have some important clues about why it’s happening — that there’s something about victims’ behavior that the members of the legal community may not be understanding."Campbell then turned to her own education in psychology, along with psychiatry, where they “study the neurobiology of trauma and victim behavior, and how trauma affects memory, cognition, and emotion."As she examined the neurobiology of sexual assault, she noted that “there are many different regions of the brain that are impacted by trauma. [...] The first two are neural mechanisms that have to do with hormones and emotions that might be happening during the assault. The second two are neural mechanisms that have to do with encoding, processing, and the memory of the assault.”By examining what happens inside the brain during a sexual assault, Campbell was able to explain 'strange behaviours' like tonic immobility ("essentially an entire shutdown in the body", also known as "rape-induced paralysis" - the reason a victim doesn't fight back despite knowing she 'should') and how stress hormones make it difficult for the brain to encode and consolidate memories (leading to fragmented memories and difficulty retrieving those memories, and explaining why police felt that stories were 'sketchy' or fragmented). Her research addressed "flat affect" and "strange emotions" from victims making reports.Perhaps most importantly, her research demonstrated how law enforcement interview techniques can either help with memory consolidation or lead to secondary victimization.Suddenly, the victims' behaviour made perfect sense... Watch the webinar here and/or read the transcript here One victim said, "After years of blaming myself, questioning myself, feeling tormented, I now understand why I froze every time I was assaulted. It now has a name. I don't have to wonder why or what's wrong with me or why didn't I do anything. I can't tell you how much relief this article brings me. You must know how much your website and your work helps those of us who have suffered in silent torment and agony. You give us a voice. You give us compassion. You give us strength and hope. There are no words to express the gratitude I feel."(When I saw her speak in 2014, she commented that she has a hard time getting permission to publish her presentations, statistics, and research publicly due to her funding sources.)