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Understanding trauma’s neuroscience can be validating for sufferers, and can inform effective treatment.

Amygdala, prefrontal cortex, Broca's area, and hippocampal changes can keep survivors trapped in the past.

Trauma doesn't just hurt your feelings; It rewires four key brain regions in measurable, well-documented ways.

Over a year ago, I wrote a post about how trauma is "not just in your head". Here, I follow it up with corroborating evidence. I’ve dedicated most of my life to treating trauma using emotionally-focused and EMDR therapies. And I’ve been ceaselessly obsessed with how and why it works.

I also see versions of brain diagrams circulating on social media constantly; colorful infographics breaking down how trauma affects key brain regions. And while I tend to cringe at oversimplified mental health memes, this one is actually onto something quite important. The neuroscience of trauma is well-documented, illuminating, and validating to survivors and their loved one(s). I believe it’s also deeply relieving and humanizing for anyone traumatized who has ever wondered: what’s wrong with me? Or, why can't I just get over this?!

Here, I summarize the four most affected brain regions and their connection to people trying to heal from real pain (as I’ve stated in a prior post, “trauma” originates from the Latin word “wound”).

1. The Overstimulated Amygdala: Your Brain's Misfiring Alarm System

To me, the most useful way to think of the amygdala is as your brain's main threat-detection system. Under ideal circumstances, it fires when there's genuine danger, helps you respond effectively, and then settles back down once the threat is addressed. With trauma (defined by someone's reaction to an event, rather than the event itself), that system not only gets stuck on "on", but I'd argue that the brain’s lever keeping it “on” metaphorically rusts and locks it on “on,” despite one’s best intentions to lubricate the dial so it can move fluidly, depending on current threats. Functional imaging studies consistently show that PTSD sufferers demonstrate heightened amygdala activation in response to threatening cues, paired with reduced activity in the prefrontal regions that would ordinarily dial it back (Kredlow et al., 2022; Etkin & Wager, 2007). The result is a nervous system perpetually scanning for danger (and, like the confirmation bias, it looks for information that confirms existing beliefs). It assumes danger and therefore finds it, even when none is present, or danger is minimal.

This is why trauma survivors aren't........

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