CCN Colloquium: "From neighborhoods to neural circuits: How the socioenvironmental context influences individual susceptibility to PTSD"

Approximately 90% of individuals will experience a traumatic event, which can lead to the development of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Interventions administered in the early aftermath of the trauma can help prevent symptom development; however, identifying those at risk for PTSD and who would benefit from early treatment is challenging, given the complex interplay between biological and environmental factors. This talk will present ongoing efforts to identify early markers of PTSD in recent trauma survivors by leveraging multimodal neuroimaging, geospatial analyses, and deep phenotyping. Recent work on the underlying biological mechanisms by which greenspace, air pollution, and socioeconomic disadvantage may impact PTSD development will be discussed. Further, the talk will explore how differential exposure to socioenvironmental factors drives ethnoracial inequities in the biological and psychological consequences of trauma. The findings highlight the importance of considering socioenvironmental factors in neurobiological models of stress and trauma-related disorders and clinical care.