FOCAL AND ABERRANT PREFRONTAL ENGAGEMENT DURING EMOTION REGULATION IN VETERANS WITH POSTTRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER

Collectively, functional neuroimaging studies implicate frontal–limbic dysfunction in the pathophysiology of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), as reflected by altered amygdala reactivity and deficient prefrontal responses. These neural patterns are often elicited by social signals of threat (fearful/angry faces) and traumatic reminders (combat sounds, script‐driven imagery). Although PTSD can be conceptualized as a disorder of emotion dysregulation, few studies to date have directly investigated the neural correlates of volitional attempts at regulating negative affect in PTSD.