PTSD and Brain Function
This stress hormone can affect the hippocampus when stress becomes chronic.
This brain region helps with decision-making, emotional control, and calming fear responses.
Prefrontal-Cortex
This stress hormone can interfere with memory when stress becomes long-term.
Cortisol
This term describes the brain’s ability to change and adapt over time.
Neuroplasticity
This PTSD symptom makes a person feel like they are reliving a traumatic event instead of simply remembering it.
A Flashback Memory
This brain region is important for emotional memory and helps attach fear to certain experiences.
Amygdala
Who researched the regulation of Cortisol and PTSD?
Yehuda et al 1995
These techniques help a person return to the present moment during a flashback or intrusive memory.
Grounding techniques
In PTSD, this fear-processing brain region can become overactive, making traumatic memories feel more intense.
The amygdala
This brain structure can be affected by chronic stress hormones, making it harder to form or retrieve memories clearly.
The hippocampus
PTSD can weaken everyday memory while making these memories stronger and more intrusive.
Traumatic memories
This type of therapy helps people process traumatic memories instead of avoiding or reliving them.
Trauma focused therapy
This PTSD symptom occurs when a traumatic memory suddenly returns without the person choosing to remember it.
An intrusive memory
In PTSD, reduced control from the prefrontal cortex can make it harder to calm this brain region.
The amygdala
Because the amygdala is overactive, PTSD can strengthen this type of memory connected to fear and emotion.
An emotional memory
During PTSD recovery, the goal is not to erase the traumatic memory, but to reduce its emotional intensity through this process.
Processing those traumatic memories
When the hippocampus is disrupted, traumatic memories may become broken, unclear, or poorly organized.
Fragmented
PTSD affects memory because these three brain regions stop working together normally.
Amgdala, prefrontal-cortex, and hippocampus
This happens when a person feels like they are reliving a traumatic event instead of remembering it as something from the past.
A flashback memory
As recovery progresses, the prefrontal cortex can become better at regulating this fear-processing brain region.
The amygdala