The Neuroscience of Being Human
The Neuroscience of PTS
Why post-traumatic stress is a natural response to an unnatural situation, what the brain is actually doing when it refuses to let go of a terrible experience, and why calling it a disorder misses the point
1,650-word article with 8 Harvard references.
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Post-traumatic stress is not a disorder. It is the brain doing exactly what it was designed to do in the aftermath of a life-threatening event: staying alert, scanning for danger, and refusing to let the memory fade until the organism is certain the threat has passed. The problem is not that this response exists. The problem is that the modern world does not give it anywhere to go. This article examines the neuroscience of PTS: how the amygdala, hippocampus, and prefrontal cortex interact during and after trauma, why some memories become trapped in the body rather than filed in the past, how the brain's fear circuitry becomes recalibrated by overwhelming experience, and why understanding PTS as a survival response rather than a pathology changes everything about how we approach recovery.
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