Trauma Exposure and Neurobiology of Fear: Risk and Resilience

Trauma exposure and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are highly prevalent in low-income urban populations. Our studies at the Grady Trauma Project in Atlanta, GA indicate that almost 90% of the inner-city population experience trauma, however not everyone will develop PTSD. This suggests risk and resilience factors for PTSD. We have found that brain-based biomarker can serve as intermediate phenotypes between genotype and psychopathology—this presentation will give an overview of the fear conditioning and functional MRI studies that describe such phenotypes. In addition, translational studies in rodents and developmental studies in humans will be presented to underscore the broad utility of intermediate phenotypes in clinical neuroscience research.