New research indicates that the traumatic memories of patients with post-traumatic stress disorder are represented very differently in the brain than “regular” sad autobiographical memories. A small study published November 30 in the journal Nature Neuroscience supports the idea that traumatic memories are a different cognitive entity than more routine bad memories. This may provide a biological explanation for why recalling traumatic memories can manifest as intrusive thoughts that are different from other negative recollections.
[Related: PTSD found in 1 in 4 adults in Flint, Michigan, after water crisis.]
The study was conducted by a team from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York and Yale University. It examined patients’ real-life personal memories in an effort to link their lived experiences with the brain’s functioning.
“For people with PTSD, recalling traumatic memories often displays as intrusions that differ profoundly from processing of ‘regular’ negative memories, yet until now, the neurobiological reasons for this qualitative difference have been poorly understood,” study co-author and Icahn Mount Sinai neuroscientist Daniela Schiller, said in a statement. “Our data show that the brain does not treat traumatic memories as regular memories, or perhaps even as memories at all. We observed that brain regions known to be involved in memory are not activated when recalling a traumatic experience.”
Schiller told The New York Times that the brain can be in a different state in two different memories, depending on which type of memory is playing out. When recalling trauma, the brain looks like it is processing experiences of something in the present instead of the past.
What is PTSD?
Posttraumatic stress disorder may occur in people who have experienced or seen a traumatic event, series of events, or set of circumstances. The American Psychiatric Association says PTSD may affect mental,…
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