Brain News
A team of researchers at the University of Rochester explored how exposure to trauma changes the brain. The study is published in the journal Communications Biology.
The Study
The researchers used fMRI to survey recorded activity in the brains of participants exposed to traumatic events—with and without psychopathologies. These include PTSD, depression, and anxiety.
The Findings
The results provided interesting insights into the effect of trauma, specifically how trauma changes the brain. However, these changes are not happening because of physical injury; rather, the brain appears to rewire itself after these experiences.
The authors added: “We are learning more about how people exposed to trauma learn to distinguish between what is safe and what is not. Their brain is giving us insight into what might be going awry in specific mechanisms that are impacted by trauma exposure, especially when emotion is involved.”
To Know More You May Refer To
Zhu, X., Suarez-Jimenez, B., Lazarov, A., Such, S., Marohasy, C., Small, S. S., Wager, T. D., Lindquist, M. A., Lissek, S., & Neria, Y. (2022). Sequential fear generalization and network connectivity in trauma exposed humans with and without psychopathology. Communications biology, 5(1), 1275. https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-022-04228-5
