Trauma exposure has the power to alter a person’s entire life, and scientists are discovering more about how traumatic experiences may alter the structure of our brains. However, these modifications are not the result of physical harm; rather, our brains seem to reorganize themselves following these encounters. The ZVR Lab, run by assistant professor Benjamin Suarez-Jimenez, Ph.D., at the Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience at the University of Rochester, is interested in understanding the mechanisms underlying these changes as well as how the brain learns about an environment and foresees threats and safety.
“We are finding out more about how traumatized individuals develop the ability to tell what is safe from what is not.” “Their brain is revealing information about potential malfunctions in particular mechanisms that are impacted by trauma exposure, particularly when emotion is present,” said Suarez-Jimenez, who started this research while a post-doctoral fellow in professor Yuval Neria’s lab at Columbia University Irving Medical Center.
Their study, which was just published in Communications Biology, discovered alterations in the salience network, a brain function important for learning and survival, among those who had experienced trauma (with and without psychopathologies, including PTSD, depression, and anxiety). The researchers used fMRI to observe participant brain activity as they viewed circles of varying sizes; only one size was associated with a mild shock (or threat).Researchers discovered yet another difference, this time among the trauma-exposed resilient group, in addition to the modifications in the salience network. They discovered that the executive control network, one of the most common brain networks, was activated in the brains of trauma survivors who did not have psychopathologies to compensate for changes in their brain functions.
Suarez-Jimenez and Xi Zhu, PhD, Assistant Professor of Clinical Neurobiology at Columbia, were the paper’s co-first authors. “Knowing what to look for in the brain when someone is exposed to trauma could dramatically progress therapy,” Suarez-Jimenez said. “In this instance, we are aware of the location of a brain alteration and the methods by which some people can compensate for it.” “It serves as a symbol of resilience.”
including a touch of emotion
According to a recent study published in Depression & Anxiety, researchers discovered that persons with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) exhibit different behaviors when there is a threat present. When no emotion is present, Suarez-Jimenez, his colleagues, co-authors, and senior author Neria discovered PTSD sufferers may accomplish the same task as someone who has not experienced trauma. However, people with PTSD had more trouble making distinctions between tasks when emotion induced by a threat was included.
The scientists employed the same procedures as in the prior experiment, using various circle sizes, one of which was associated with a shock-based threat. Researchers found that individuals with PTSD had reduced signaling between the salience network, a system utilized for learning and survival, and the hippocampus, a part of the brain responsible for emotion and memory. Additionally, they discovered reduced transmission between the default mode network and the amygdala, another region associated with emotion (an area of the brain that activates when someone is not focused on the outside world). These results demonstrate the impaired ability of a PTSD patient to efficiently discern distinctions between the circles.
“This indicates that PTSD sufferers only struggle with discrimination when there is an emotional component.” In this instance, the emotion was unpleasant; however, it is yet unknown whether similar findings apply to other emotions like melancholy, disgust, enjoyment, etc. Suarez-Jimenez added. Therefore, it’s possible that in the actual world, emotions overwhelm a person’s capacity to distinguish between safety, danger, and reward. “It oversimplifies the threat.”
The primary PI of this study, Neria, stated that the data from both articles, when taken as a whole, “help to broaden our knowledge about the effect of trauma on the brain.” This study was supported by the NIMH and sought to understand the neurological and behavioral mechanisms of trauma, PTSD, and resilience. “The brain regions necessary for processing and responding to fear exhibit striking malfunction, which underlies PTSD.” “The Dr. Suarez-Jimenez group at Rochester and my lab at Columbia are dedicated to advancing neurobiological research for the purpose of developing new and improved medicines that can successfully target atypical fear circuits.”
With the use of virtual reality in his lab, Suarez-Jimenez will continue to investigate how the brain functions and the various emotions connected to it using more real-life scenarios. He is interested in learning whether these mechanisms and modifications are exclusive to threats or if they apply to processes that are context-related as well.
Ariel Durosky of the University of Tulsa in Oklahoma, Sara Such of the University of Pennsylvania, Caroline Marohasy of the University of Washington, Seattle, and Shmuel Lissek of the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, are among the additional authors. Co-first authors John Keefe, Ph.D., of Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and Xi Zhu, Ph.D., of Columbia University Irving Medical Center, are also included. The National Institute of Mental Health provided funding for the investigation.
Ariel Durosky of the University of Tulsa in Oklahoma, Sara Such of the University of Pennsylvania, Caroline Marohasy of the University of Washington, Seattle, Tor Wager, Ph.D., of Dartmouth College, Martin Lindquist, Ph.D., of Johns Hopkins, and Shmuel Lissek, Ph.D., of the University of Minnesota are additional authors on the Communications Biology paper. The National Institute of Mental Health provided funding for the investigation.
