WIKIMEDIA, JIM GORDON
A chronically overactive amygdala, the brain region involved in fear, is a hallmark of an unhealthy response to traumatic events. New research, published today (August 30) in Molecular Psychiatry, shows that some soldiers—who have no mental health deficits after a return from deployment—also harbor signs of trauma within the regulatory network of this brain region.
The findings could help researchers determine “what changes [in the brain] help us predict who becomes sick and who recovers and leads a normal life,” said Ahmad Hariri, a professor at Duke University who was not involved in this study.
The amygdala mediates humans' fear response, and researchers have found that its overreaction is related to psychological disorders such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety and depression. People with PTSD, ...
