Brain Study Suggests Traumatic Memories Are Processed as Present Experience [nytimes.com]

^{An M.R.I. scan of a brain highlighting the posterior cingulate cortex. In a study, traumatic memories appeared to engage this area, which is usually involved in internally directed thought, like introspection or daydreaming. Credit...Geoff B. Hall}

By Ellen Berry, The New York Times, November 30, 2023

At the root of post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, is a memory that cannot be controlled. It may intrude on everyday activity, thrusting a person into the middle of a horrifying event, or surface as night terrors or flashbacks.

Decades of treatment of military veterans and sexual assault survivors have left little doubt that traumatic memories function differently from other memories. A group of researchers at Yale University and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai set out to find empirical evidence of those differences.

The team conducted brain scans of 28 people with PTSD while they listened to recorded narrations of their own memories. Some of the recorded memories were neutral, some were simply “sad,” and some were traumatic.

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