Abstract
Post-traumatic Stress Disorder is a chronic condition that occurs following a traumatic experience. Information processing models of PTSD focus on integrating situationally triggered sensory-emotional memories with consciously accessible autobiographical memories. Review of the nature of implicit memory supports the view that sensory-emotional memories are implicit in nature. Dissociation was also found to be associated with the development and severity of PTSD, as well as deficits in autobiographical memory. Moreover, disorganized attachment (DA) was associated with greater degrees of dissociation and PTSD, and like the defining neural activation in PTSD, was found to be associated with basal ganglia activity. In addition, subcortical neuroception of safety promotes a neurophysiological substrate supportive of social engagement and inhibition of fear-based responses. Furthermore, activation of representations of co-created imagined scenes of safety and secure attachment are associated with increases in this neurophysiological substrate. Repeated priming of secure attachment imagery was associated with modification of internal working models of DA along with reductions in dissociation and recovery from complex PTSD. In conclusion, it is posited that adequate recovery from extensive trauma experiences requires more than conscious elaboration of traumatic autobiographical memories and that the application of implicit nonconscious memory modification strategies will facilitate more optimal recovery.
Highlights
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is an often chronic condition consequent to the experience of significant trauma [1]
From the review of implicit memory above, we see that priming largely occurs in the sensory and associative areas of the cortex, probabilistic classification involves the caudate nucleus and the putamen, statistical learning involves the striatum of the basal ganglia, implicit category learning is dependent on the caudate nucleus of the basal ganglia that supports cortico-striatal circuits, and motor sequence learning is dependent on the basal ganglia
Ehler and Clark (2000) and Brewin et al (2010) have both demonstrated that PTSD involves disruption in memory processes; a failure to integrate sensory and fear-related memories with explicit autobiographical memories [4,9]
Summary
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is an often chronic condition consequent to the experience of significant trauma [1]. Brewin et al, noting the strong visual component to trauma-related intrusions, states that the flexible, consciously accessible context-dependent representations (C-Reps) project through the ventral visual stream to the inferior temporal cortex with its connections to the parahippocampus and hippocampus [9] These authors indicated that the inflexible, sensation-bound, viewpoint-dependent, involuntarily reactivated representation accompanied by strong emotional and autonomic components (S-Reps) project through the dorsal visual stream to superior parietal areas with their connections to the amygdala and insula. They propose that these two types of representations interact via egocentric imagery in the precuneus and can be activated either top-down or bottom-up by either system, respectively
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