Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and acute stress disorder are precipitated by exposure to one or more traumatic events, and result in debilitating fear-related symptoms. Advances made over the past several years have greatly improved our understanding of these disorders, as well as the neurobiological and genetic factors that contribute to their emergence and progression. In this review, we provide an overview of this research, with a particular focus on recent developments in understanding the neurocircuitry underlying relevant aspects of fear learning, including acquisition, generalization, and the extinction of fear. Molecular regulators of stress response and candidate genes implicated in PTSD are also discussed. Although there remains a great deal to learn about these disorders, novel approaches, large-scale genomic studies, and new molecular techniques promise to help untangle the neurobiology of trauma- and stressor-related illness over the coming years.
This review contains 3 figures, 3 tables and 56 references
Key words: Posttraumatic stress disorder, fear, genetics, GWAS, HPA stress response, neurocircuitry models of trauma, generalization, extinction learning.
Altered Pain Perception and Fear-Learning Deficits in Subjects With Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
