ABSTRACT
Concurrent with the many controversies that have surrounded the diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), there has been an increasing understanding of the neurobiology of trauma and PTSD. The result of this work has provided considerable evidence that trauma can change the brain and that individuals with PTSD are affected by a range of neurobiological alterations. These neurobiological findings are likely to have some impact on the controversies surrounding the field and significant implications for how the public views the trauma survivor as well as how survivors view themselves. After providing a brief primer on some of the most recent neurobiological findings, the clinical implications of such a “brain-based” model of PTSD are discussed.
Acknowledgments
The work was funded in part by NIMH Grant R29 MH58215 to Dr. Matthew Kimble. I am grateful to Richard McNally, Milissa Kaufman, Libby Marks, and Christopher Frueh for their commentary on the manuscript.
Notes
Bremner, J. D., & Vermetten, E. (2004). Neuroanatomical changes associated with pharmacotherapy in posttraumatic stress disorder. In R. Yehuda & B. McEwen (Eds.), Biobehavioral stress response: Protective and damaging effects (pp. 154–157). Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1032, 154–157. New York, NY: New York Academy of Sciences.
