Neural contributors to trauma resilience: a review of longitudinal neuroimaging studies

Abstract

Resilience in the face of major life stressors is changeable over time and with experience. Accordingly, differing sets of neurobiological factors may contribute to an adaptive stress response before, during, and after the stressor. Longitudinal studies are therefore particularly effective in answering questions about the determinants of resilience. Here we provide an overview of the rapidly-growing body of longitudinal neuroimaging research on stress resilience. Despite lingering gaps and limitations, these studies are beginning to reveal individual differences in neural circuit structure and function that appear protective against the emergence of future psychopathology following a major life stressor. Here we outline a neural circuit model of resilience to trauma. Specifically, pre-trauma biomarkers of resilience show that an ability to modulate activity within threat and salience networks predicts fewer stress-related symptoms. In contrast, early post-trauma biomarkers of subsequent resilience or recovery show a more complex pattern, spanning a number of major circuits including attention and cognitive control networks as well as primary sensory cortices. This novel synthesis suggests stress resilience may be scaffolded by stable individual differences in the processing of threat cues, and further buttressed by post-trauma adaptations to the stressor that encompass multiple mechanisms and circuits. More attention and resources supporting this work will inform the targets and timing of mechanistic resilience-boosting interventions.