Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts 02114, USA. roger_pitman@hms. harvard.edu
Nat Rev Neurosci. 2012 Nov;13(11):769-87. doi: 10.1038/nrn3339. Epub 2012 Oct 10.
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is the only major mental disorder for which a cause is considered to be known: that is, an event that involves threat to the physical integrity of oneself or others and induces a response of intense fear, helplessness or horror. Although PTSD is still largely regarded as a psychological phenomenon, over the past three decades the growth of the biological PTSD literature has been explosive, and thousands of references now exist. Ultimately, the impact of an environmental event, such as a psychological trauma, must be understood at organic, cellular and molecular levels. This Review attempts to present the current state of this understanding on the basis of psychophysiological, structural and functional neuroimaging, and endocrinological, genetic and molecular biological studies in humans and in animal models.
创伤后应激障碍（PTSD）是唯一一种已知病因的主要精神障碍：即涉及自身或他人身体完整性受到威胁并引起强烈恐惧、无助或恐惧反应的事件。尽管 PTSD 仍在很大程度上被视为一种心理现象，但在过去的三十年中，生物 PTSD 文献的增长呈爆炸式增长，现在已有数千篇参考文献。最终，必须在有机、细胞和分子水平上理解环境事件（如心理创伤）的影响。本综述试图根据人类和动物模型的心理生理学、结构和功能神经影像学以及内分泌学、遗传学和分子生物学研究，介绍目前对此的理解状态。
