ReviewFrontiers in psychiatry2015
Mental Imagery and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: A Neuroimaging and Experimental Psychopathology Approach to Intrusive Memories of Trauma.
Review in Frontiers in psychiatry, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 28 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
28 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 98 citations in OpenAlex.
- Intrusive memories of trauma: A target for research bridging cognitive science and its clinical application.Clinical psychology review · 2019Pooled it
- Altered Effective Connectivity of Precuneus Subregions and Associated Gene Profiles in Chronic Insomnia Disorder Patients Before and After Treatment.Brain and behavior · 2026Trial
- A guided single session intervention to reduce intrusive memories of work-related trauma: a randomised controlled trial with healthcare workers in the COVID-19 pandemic.BMC medicine · 2024Trial
- Re-experiencing trauma: Occipital lobe resting-state functional connectivity in posttraumatic stress disorder.Psychiatry research. Neuroimaging · 2026Article
- Determinants of mental health in earthquake survivors: Trauma memories, cognitions, identity and safety-seeking behaviours in PTSD and CPTSD models.Psychology and psychotherapy · 2026Article
- A neuro-synthesis of psychological constructs relevant to posttraumatic stress disorder.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Microstructural Integrity of Hippocampal-Posterior Cortical White Matter Is Associated With Phenomenological Properties of Trauma-Related Intrusive Memories.Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging · 2026Article
- 'A labyrinth with no way out'-the conceptualization of mental distress among Arabic-speaking refugee youth: a qualitative study.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Targeting memory of embedded positive verbal content indirectly modulates negative visual memory.iScience · 2025Article
- Trauma, Terror, and Toothpaste: Exploring Memories for Dental Visits Across a Range of Patient Fear.Oral (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Spatiotemporal dynamics of hippocampal-cortical networks underlying the unique phenomenological properties of trauma-related intrusive memories.Molecular psychiatry · 2024Article
- Mental Imagery in the Relationship between Alexithymia and Parental Psychological Control.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- A model for secondary traumatic stress following workplace exposure to traumatic material in analytical staff.Communications psychology · 2024Review
- Cumulative Trauma Exposure and Post-Traumatic Stress Symptoms among Older Adults in South Africa: Does Post-Traumatic Growth Moderate this Link?Journal of aggression, maltreatment & trauma · 2024Article
- Neural processing of audiovisual and painful analogue trauma and its relationship with subsequent audiovisual and pain intrusions.European journal of psychotraumatology · 2024Article
- Neural correlates of sleep-induced benefits on traumatic memory processing.Human brain mapping · 2023Article
- Workplace Trauma in a Digital Age: The Impact of Video Evidence of Violent Crime on Criminal Justice Professionals.Journal of interpersonal violence · 2023Article
- Article
- Assessment of Alzheimer's Disease Imaging Biomarkers in World Trade Center Responders with Cognitive Impairment at Midlife.World journal of nuclear medicine · 2022Article
- Lonely in the Dark: Trauma Memory and Sex-Specific Dysregulation of Amygdala Reactivity to Fear Signals.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
This hypothesis and theory paper presents a pragmatic framework to help bridge the clinical presentation and neuroscience of intrusive memories following psychological trauma. Intrusive memories are a hallmark symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, key questions, including those involving etiology, remain. In particular, we know little about the brain mechanisms involved in why only some moments of the trauma return as intrusive memories while others do not. We first present an overview of the patient experience of intrusive memories and the neuroimaging studies that have investigated intrusive memories in PTSD patients. Next, one mechanism of how to model intrusive memories in the laboratory, the trauma film paradigm, is examined. In particular, we focus on studies combining the trauma film paradigm with neuroimaging. Stemming from the clinical presentation and our current understanding of the processes involved in intrusive memories, we propose a framework in which an intrusive memory comprises five component parts; autobiographical (trauma) memory, involuntary recall, negative emotions, attention hijacking, and mental imagery. Each component part is considered in turn, both behaviorally and from a brain imaging perspective. A mapping of these five components onto our understanding of the brain is described. Unanswered questions that exist in our understanding of intrusive memories are considered using the proposed framework. Overall, we suggest that mental imagery is key to bridging the experience, memory, and intrusive recollection of the traumatic event. Further, we suggest that by considering the brain mechanisms involved in the component parts of an intrusive memory, in particular mental imagery, we may be able to aid the development of a firmer bridge between patients' experiences of intrusive memories and the clinical neuroscience behind them.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.