ArticleJournal of psychiatry & neuroscience : JPN
Moral wounds run deep: exaggerated midbrain functional network connectivity across the default mode network in posttraumatic stress disorder.
Article in Journal of psychiatry & neuroscience : JPN. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 24 citations in OpenAlex.
- Resting-State Neural Signatures of Moral Injury: Associations With Rumination.Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging · 2026Article
- The impact of moral injury-related content on reasoning and its neural correlates: Data from the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF).Neuroimage. Reports · 2026Article
- Toward a framework of moral challenges in military operations: implications for psychological resilience.Frontiers in public health · 2026Review
- The therapeutic role of self-transcendence in moral injury recovery:Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Article
- Unraveling trauma memory: Differential functional connectivity profiles of anterior and posterior hippocampus in post-traumatic stress disorder and its dissociative subtype.Neuroimage. Reports · 2025Article
- War trauma impacts in Ukrainian combat and civilian populations: Moral injury and associated mental health symptoms.Military psychology : the official journal of the Division of Military Psychology, American Psychological Association · 2024Article
- Civilian Moral Injury and Amygdala Functional Connectivity During Attention to Threat.Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging · 2024Article
- Survival, Attachment, and Healing: An Evolutionary Lens on Interventions for Trauma-Related Dissociation.Psychology research and behavior management · 2024Review
- The Impact of Perfectionism on the Incidence of Major Depression in Chinese Medical Freshmen: From a 1-Year Longitudinal Study.Psychology research and behavior management · 2024Article
- 'I am afraid you will see the stain on my soul': Direct gaze neural processing in individuals with PTSD after moral injury recall.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2023Article
- Beneath, Beyond Burnout: Solving for Causes.The Permanente journal · 2023Article
- Neuroscientific account of Guilt- and Shame-Driven PTSD phenotypes.European journal of psychotraumatology · 2023Article
- Contrasting Associations Between Heart Rate Variability and Brainstem-Limbic Connectivity in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Its Dissociative Subtype: A Pilot Study.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors at 1 institution in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundA moral injury occurs when a deeply held moral code has been violated, and it can lead to the development of symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, the neural correlates that differentiate moral injury and PTSD remain largely unknown. Intrinsic connectivity networks such as the default mode network (DMN) appear to be altered in people with PTSD who have experienced moral injury. However, brainstem, midbrain and cerebellar systems are rarely integrated into the intrinsic connectivity networks; this is a critical oversight, because these systems display marked differences in people with PTSD and are thought to underlie strong moral emotions such as shame, guilt and betrayal.
methodsWe conducted an independent component analysis on data generated during script-driven memory recall of moral injury in participants with military- or law enforcement-related PTSD (
resultsWe found stronger functional network connectivity in the midbrain periaqueductal grey ( LIMITATIONS: The significant clusters were large, but resolution is generally lower for subcortical structures.
conclusionIn PTSD, the DMN appears to be biased toward lower-level, midbrain systems, which may drive toxic shame and related moral emotions that are common in PTSD, highlighting the depth at which moral injuries are represented neurobiologically.
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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 Socratic graph.