How Does Trauma Affect the Brain?
Published on June 24, 2024
About 70 percent of American adults have endured at least one traumatic event in their life. Think about it. Almost everyone you know has been impacted in a variety of ways. Trauma can lead to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It can result in flashbacks and nightmares. Trauma can take a long time to be processed and resolved. Trauma also changes your brain.
We’ll go into more detail below, but it’s important to recognize that a traumatized person undergoes real change. This influences how they think, react, and feel. But the more you know about trauma and its effects, the better equipped you are to start healing.
Why Does Trauma Affect the Brain?
You might say it’s a form of self-defense. Something terrible has happened to you, and your brain is dedicated to preventing a repeat. In a misguided attempt to protect you, the brain can become unable (or unwilling?) to accept any risk as minor. All input could be a warning and is thus treated as one. This is how post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) develops.
Anyone living in such a state can struggle with issues like:
Exhaustion and low-energy
Sleep disturbances
An inability to concentrate or make decisions
Anxiety
Chronic fear
Social withdrawal and isolation
Irritability and restlessness
Never letting themselves relax and have fun
Without intervention and treatment, parts of your brain continue to change in ways that make the above outcomes feel normal and even acceptable. Again, this makes it all the more important to learn about what’s happening and to seek the help you need and deserve.
Which Parts of the Brain Are Most Impacted?
Amygdala
The infamous fight-or-flight automatic response originates in the tiny, almond-shaped amygdala. It manages your emotions and memories. Most important to the processes of trauma, the amygdala also oversees your survival instincts and can initiate life-saving measures. In the case of a trauma survivor, the amygdala becomes dysfunctionally overactive and hyper-vigilant.
Hippocampus
When trauma causes your amygdala to see danger everywhere, stress hormones rule the day, and this causes the hippocampus to fail at its typical function. No longer does it effectively store long-term memories. Instead, the hippocampus stores fragments, making processing the experience almost impossible. This development leaves a trauma survivor susceptible to being triggered and experiencing flashbacks.
Prefrontal Cortex
You can thank your PFC for keeping you organized. It regulates emotions and enables clear-headed decisions. Typically, it modulates the amygdala when it comes to our stress response. Trauma weakens the PFC’s functionality and hands the reins back to the amygdala to trigger a cycle. Stress hormones flow, the hippocampus shrinks more, and the PFC becomes even less useful.
Are These Trauma-Induced Changes Permanent?
Short answer: No. Such a recovery requires diligent work under the guidance of a trauma-informed therapist and is founded on the reality that your brain is “plastic.”
The same plasticity in your brain that allows trauma to change it allows therapy to repair it. Put simply, your brain can retrain and rewire itself. Self-care also plays a crucial role. For example, mindful meditation grounds us in the present moment and, therefore, calms the need for hyper-vigilance. In turn, stress hormones like cortisol become less present in our bodies.
How Can You Make the Healing Happen?
The road to recovery is well-worn and transformative. But it begins with you reaching out. Once you’ve connected with a mental health professional, you’ve positioned yourself to gain new knowledge about trauma, its impact, and its treatment. If you’ve endured traumatic events, you can thrive again. I’d love to connect and talk more with you about trauma therapy. Let’s start the healing journey together.