Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

🧠 Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) — The Brain After Trauma

PTSD occurs when the brain experiences an overwhelming traumatic event — such as abuse, betrayal, the loss of a loved one, or life-threatening situations like accidents or war.

Such experiences overactivate the amygdala (the brain’s fear center) while reducing the function of the hippocampus, which normally helps distinguish the past from the present.
As a result, the brain cannot recognize that the danger is over — causing the person to relive the trauma as if it were still happening.

Common symptoms include extreme reactions to loud sounds, flashes of panic when seeing shadows, or feeling as though one is being attacked again.

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Those with emotional trauma often develop a belief of “I can’t trust anyone anymore.”
The brain links trust = danger, forming new neural networks designed to protect against further pain.
This leads to avoidance, hypervigilance, and emotional shutdown, even in safe environments.
In psychiatry, this is called Hypervigilance — the constant state of being on alert, unable to relax.

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Neuroscientists at Harvard found that people with PTSD show abnormal fluctuations in cortisol levels, disrupting the stress-response system (the HPA axis).
Research from Yale School of Medicine revealed that chronic amygdala hyperactivation can actually alter brain structure,
while Stanford University reported that EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) and Trauma-Focused CBT can help the brain “reprocess” memories — gradually reducing fear responses.

Meanwhile, researchers at the University of Oxford and Cambridge Neuroscience confirmed that mindfulness, sound therapy, and high-quality sleep promote neurogenesis in the hippocampus,
helping integrate traumatic memories into life experiences more safely.

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In other words, PTSD is not emotional weakness —
it is a biological change in the brain that occurs as part of the survival process.
Your brain is not broken — it’s trying to protect you,
it just hasn’t learned yet that the danger is over.

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🔬 Scientific References:

• Harvard Medical School. (2020). PTSD: Understanding the Basics. Harvard Health Publishing.
• Yehuda, R. (2015). Post-traumatic stress disorder. The New England Journal of Medicine, 372(8), 784–791.
• Yale School of Medicine. (2021). The Amygdala and the Neurobiology of Trauma.
• Stanford University Department of Psychiatry. (2022). Advances in PTSD Treatment and Neural Plasticity.
• University of Oxford. (2020). Hippocampal Neurogenesis and Fear Memory in PTSD.
• Cambridge Neuroscience. (2021). Neuroplasticity and Stress Recovery Pathways.
• American Psychiatric Association. (2022). DSM-5-TR: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.