{"id":172,"date":"2019-07-01T21:28:47","date_gmt":"2019-07-02T01:28:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=172"},"modified":"2022-04-14T11:23:28","modified_gmt":"2022-04-14T15:23:28","slug":"ptsd-and-the-brain-effects-changes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/ptsd-and-the-brain-effects-changes\/","title":{"rendered":"PTSD &#038; the Brain: How the Brain Changes Permanently"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>How does trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder change the brain? How does it affect the amygdala and the opioid system?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Emotions are strong impulses that urge us to take immediate action. The root of the word emotion is <em>motere<\/em>, the Latin verb meaning \u201cto move.\u201d Watch children or animals: they act almost immediately upon getting a feeling, before they know what they\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s a widely-held belief that emotions aren\u2019t rational. But passionate emotional responses are designed to overwhelm reason. The more intense the emotion, the more it takes over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Emotions, of course, have normal functional uses. But <strong>PTSD occurs when the brain has lowered its setpoint for alarm due to traumatic experiences<\/strong>, making emergencies out of anything remotely resembling either a single, impactful traumatic event or prolonged periods of suffering cruelties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>PTSD also generally stems from <strong>traumatic events in which the victim felt helpless<\/strong>. The helplessness is part of what makes the initial traumatic event so overwhelming to the limbic system&#8211;it increases the strength of the emotion because the brain feels like there\u2019s no action to take.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Here\u2019s how PTSD affects the brain:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Key changes in a brain affected by PTSD happen in a structure that regulates adrenaline and noradrenaline, which are emergency hormones. This system turns hyperactive in PTSD, releasing extremely large doses of those hormones in situations that pose little to no threat to the person but resemble the traumatic event.<\/li><li>But not only does the brain go into hyperactive threat mode as a result of PTSD, the opioid system in the brain <em>also<\/em> becomes hyperactive. In a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/dr-amen-brain-health\/\">healthy brain<\/a>, the opioid system secretes endorphins to dull any feelings of pain. When this system goes into overdrive, not only does it dull feelings of pain, but also of pleasure, and emotion in general. This creates the numbness and emotional distance that many PTSD victims feel.<\/li><li>These two changes together seem to increase the likelihood that a person will be further traumatized, since the changes increase the number of emergency alerts while decreasing any positive feeling or connection to the outside world that might offset the emergency.<\/li><\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><!-- wp:paragraph --><\/p>\n<p>How does trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder change the brain? How does it affect the amygdala and the opioid system?<\/p>\n<p><!-- \/wp:paragraph --><\/p>\n<p><!-- wp:paragraph --><\/p>\n<p>Emotions are strong impulses that urge us to take immediate action. The root of the word emotion is <em>motere<\/em>, the Latin verb meaning \u201cto move.\u201d Watch children or animals: they act almost immediately upon getting a feeling, before they know what they\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n<p><!-- \/wp:paragraph --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":138,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[10],"class_list":["post-172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-psychology","tag-emotional-intelligence","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>PTSD &amp; the Brain: How the Brain Changes Permanently - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"How do trauma and PTSD affect the brain? How do the amygdala and hippocampus change? Learn about PTSD&#039;s effects on the brain here.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/ptsd-and-the-brain-effects-changes\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"PTSD &amp; the Brain: How the Brain Changes Permanently\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"How do trauma and PTSD affect the brain? How do the amygdala and hippocampus change? Learn about PTSD&#039;s effects on the brain here.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/ptsd-and-the-brain-effects-changes\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Shortform Books\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-07-02T01:28:47+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-04-14T15:23:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/emotional-intelligence-anger.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"737\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"518\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Allen Cheng\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Allen Cheng\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/ptsd-and-the-brain-effects-changes\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/ptsd-and-the-brain-effects-changes\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Allen Cheng\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/e9c1cecc340502045489d4c4e6f4a877\"},\"headline\":\"PTSD &#038; the Brain: How the Brain Changes Permanently\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-07-02T01:28:47+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-04-14T15:23:28+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/ptsd-and-the-brain-effects-changes\/\"},\"wordCount\":362,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/ptsd-and-the-brain-effects-changes\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/emotional-intelligence-anger.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Emotional Intelligence\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Psychology\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/ptsd-and-the-brain-effects-changes\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/ptsd-and-the-brain-effects-changes\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/ptsd-and-the-brain-effects-changes\/\",\"name\":\"PTSD & the Brain: How the Brain Changes Permanently - Shortform Books\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/ptsd-and-the-brain-effects-changes\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/ptsd-and-the-brain-effects-changes\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/emotional-intelligence-anger.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-07-02T01:28:47+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-04-14T15:23:28+00:00\",\"description\":\"How do trauma and PTSD affect the brain? 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