Neuropsychology of trauma-exposure: emotional learning, stress responsivity and the glucocorticoid receptor

In the present dissertation the aim was to identify correlates of trauma-exposure in persons who developed symptoms of a posttraumatic stress disorder and in those who were trauma-exposed but do not suffer from PTSD as well as in persons without trauma-exposure. In the first part of the dissertation, mechanisms of context conditioning and the release of glucocorticoids by the Hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenocortical axis were investigated in trauma-exposed and non-exposed persons. In the second part of the dissertation, receptor sensitivity was investigated by comparing the glucocorticoid receptor expression on lymphocyte subpopulations in PTSD patients, trauma-exposed and non-traumatized controls. In addition, potential factors predicting the number of glucocorticoid receptors were identified