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Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: Hippocampus or Hippopotamus

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For my third and final post, I am going to discuss the effects of PTSD on the brain; in particular the hippocampus. Please do not get the hippocampus confused with the hippopotamus because your interpretation of this post will most likely make no sense what so ever. So first I’d like to show you the difference between the hippocampus and the hippopotamus.

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(This is a hippopotamus)

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(And another hippopotamus)

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(Finally, this is the hippocampus located within the brain)

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(And a dissection of a sheep’s brain showing the hippocampus and other features)

Before I inform you as to whether or not PTSD effects the brain or not, I’d like to ask you a question.
Do you think a stress disorder could negatively impact the brain? And to what degree do you think it would have upon the brain?

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I’d like to tell you that PTSD does in fact negatively impact the brain. Thanks to advances in medical technology we can now see the effects of PTSD on the brain with the help of an MRI machine. The hippocampus is involved with many roles of the body, these include:

Consolidation of New Memories

Emotional Responses

Navigation

Spatial Orientation

The hippocampus allows us to live in the ‘present’ by storing new memories. Without this, we would constantly living in the past. The hippocampus is involved with mental illnesses and appears to shrink in cases of severe depression which can be associated with PTSD as well as other mental illnesses. However, recent studies show that the shrinkage CAN be reversed with the right treatment.

Those who suffer from PTSD may have impairments in the hippocampus within their brain. PTSD has been proven to have a sensitivity to stress and can not only cause problems in dealing with memories of past experiences, it can also impact on new learning. Stress impairs the regeneration of new nerve cells (neurons) by stopping or slowing down the neuron regeneration. A recent study on whether PTSD symptoms matched up with a measurable loss of neurons in the hippocampus, results showed that diminished right hippocampal volume in the PTSD patients was linked with short-term memory loss with similar results of those with PTSD who were victims of childhood physical or sexual abuse.
Further studies show that the hippocampal volume reduction is specific to PTSD. It is suspected that the damage to the hippocampus due to stress brought on by childhood abuse tends to lead to distortion and fragmentation of past memories.

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(MRI scan of a normal brain vs one with PTSD)

As you can tell, PTSD can cause measurable physical changes in the hippocampus an area involved with emotions and memory, if PTSD is left untreated, the effects can lead to problems with learning and remembering new information.

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Not only are the short-term effects of PTSD a nightmare itself, the unseen damage occurring to the brain may soon make recovery harder due to the damage to particular parts of the brain. As I have said in my previous posts, if you or someone you know may be suffering from PTSD, it is important that you seek help. I hope you have learnt something regarding Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and the history behind it.

WMU Psychology Department: Lisa Baker. 2013. WMU Psychology Department: Lisa Baker. [ONLINE] Available at:http://homepages.wmich.edu/~bakerl/psy378/images/brainsrev.html. [Accessed 22 May 2013].

Effect of PTSD on the Brain – Information on the Effect of PTSD on the Brain. 2013. Effect of PTSD on the Brain – Information on the Effect of PTSD on the Brain. [ONLINE] Available at:http://ptsd.about.com/od/symptomsanddiagnosis/a/hippocampus.htm. [Accessed 22 May 2013].

PTSD & The Brain | Heal My PTSD. 2013. PTSD & The Brain | Heal My PTSD. [ONLINE] Available at: http://healmyptsd.com/education/ptsd-the-brain. [Accessed 22 May 2013].

The Brain, Brain Chemistry, And PTSD. 2013. The Brain, Brain Chemistry, And PTSD. [ONLINE] Available at: http://krillco.hubpages.com/hub/The-Brain–Brain-Chemistry–And-PTSD. [Accessed 22 May 2013].

MRI scan | Better Health Channel. 2013. MRI scan | Better Health Channel. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/bhcv2/bhcarticles.nsf/pages/MRI_scan. [Accessed 22 May 2013].

The Invisible Epidemic: PTSD & the Brain | Pandora’s Project. 2013. The Invisible Epidemic: PTSD & the Brain | Pandora’s Project. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.pandys.org/articles/invisibleepidemic.html. [Accessed 22 May 2013].

PTSD News: Presentations on the neurobiology of PTSD this week. 2013.PTSD News: Presentations on the neurobiology of PTSD this week. [ONLINE] Available at: http://ptsd-news.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/presentations-on-neurobiology-of-ptsd.html. [Accessed 22 May 2013].



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