Dissociation and neurobiological consequences of traumatic stress

Abstract

According to recent evidence traumatic stress is an important etiological factor in pathogenesis of psychiatric diseases. Typical psychological manifestation of the traumatic stress represents dissociative states. Dissociated states present pathological conditions where psychological trauma may emerge in a variety of forms such as psychic dissociative symptoms or on the other hand as somatoform symptoms including seizures. At this time there is evidence that temporal lobe seizure activity may produce dissociative syndrome and this activity likely may exist independently of neurological focal lesion. This conceptualization of dissociative phenomena is in accordance with findings that originate from the study of the relationship between epilepsy and mental illness and known as antagonism between epilepsy and psychosis or the so-called forced normalization. From this point of view the relationship between dissociation, epileptic activity and kindling phenomena represent useful concepts for understanding of neurobiological consequences of the traumatic stress and dissociation with respect to pathogenesis of stress-related mental diseases.