Neurobiology of PTSD: A Review of Neuroimaging Findings

By Sarah N. Garfinkel, PhD; Israel Liberzon, MD

Neuroimaging serves as an effective way to investigate the neurocircuitry involved in the development of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). A number of models describing functional neuroanatomy of PTSD symptom development emerged over the past decade, inspired by both basic animal research and an increasing number of human neuroimaging studies. These models have traditionally conceptualized PTSD as a state of heightened responsivity to threatening stimuli and later as a state of insufficient inhibitory control over-exaggerated threat-sensitivity. They emphasize the centrality of threat-related processing in the pathophysiology of PTSD and therefore account for the “hypersensitivity to threat,” which is highly characteristic of PTSD (such as hypervigilance and hyperarousal). Neuroimaging findings in PTSD lend credence to incorporating “hypersensitivity to threat” within the conceptualization of PTSD, and these findings will be discussed within this review.