The psychobiology of trauma

Complex trauma, that is, prolonged exposure to interpersonal violence, has a documented relationship with a host of negative outcomes, spanning from physical and mental health to continued trauma exposure, suggesting that multiple functional domains may be impacted by trauma exposure. For example even the diagnosis of PTSD may be configured by over 30,000 distinct symptom-level composites, suggesting significant heterogeneity in trauma outcomes. Fear, and its biological correlate, hyperarousal, has been positioned as a central mechanism in the trauma response. For example, hyperarousal-driven fear may alter risk perception, which may, in turn, alter social behaviour. But the experience of fear and the biological shifts that accompany it only accounts for part of the variance in functional and clinical adaptations to trauma. Other contrasting affective and biological states, such as shame and numbing, may impact the experience of trauma-exposed individuals. In this talk, the presenter will outline a series of studies using autonomic physiology, neuroimaging, and lab-based behavioural tasks which a) examine the biological underpinnings of effects beyond fear including shame and numbing and b) connects these biological alterations to functional, trauma-related outcomes.