A neuro-synthesis of psychological constructs relevant to posttraumatic stress disorder

Sci Rep. 2026 Jul 9. doi: 10.1038/s41598-026-60710-8. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a heterogeneous neuropsychiatric disorder defined by a constellation of symptoms and psychological processes following trauma exposure. PTSD research spans diverse constructs, but heterogeneous terminology and task-specific findings complicate efforts to link these constructs to neural systems. While neuroimaging meta-analyses have revealed structural, functional, and network abnormalities in PTSD, few studies have examined how PTSD-relevant psychological constructs are organized according to broader meta-analytic activation patterns. To address this gap, we combined Neurosynth and PubMed text mining to (1) identify psychological construct terms that are represented in PTSD research discourse and have sufficient neuroimaging meta-analytic support, and (2) determine whether these constructs cluster into neuroimaging-informed domains that align with canonical brain networks. Using graph network and community detection clustering, we identified four stable clusters that were labeled “Cognition,” “Emotion,” “Memory Function,” and “Decision-Making.” The cognition cluster converged on middle frontal gryus, amygdala, and dorsal anterior insula. The emotion cluster mapped onto the amygdala, subgenual anterior cingulate (sgACC), and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). The memory function cluster involved hippocampus, amygdala, and vmPFC. The decision-making learning cluster encompassed vmPFC, striatum, and sgACC. By integrating Neurosynth term-based meta-analyses with PubMed filtering, network-based clustering, our approach bridges semantic, mechanistic, and neural organization, reducing conceptual fragmentation providing a neuroimaging informed conceptual framework of PTSD-related discourse.

PMID:42426181 | DOI:10.1038/s41598-026-60710-8