[Neurobiology of posttraumatic and somatoform disorders in the elderly].

BACKGROUND: Clinically relevant posttraumatic stress disorders are almost always associated with physical symptoms, which are, on the one hand, classified as somatoform and, on the other hand, may also present as somatic comorbidities. The psychological, neurobiological, endocrinological and immunological correlations are only now beginning to be understood. Thereby, integration into a meaningful biopsychosocial model is still pending.

PURPOSE: The following article gives a concise summary of the knowledge concerning the relationship between body and psyche in posttraumatic stress spectrum disorders and provides the neuroscientific foundation which could establish a biological link between the phenomenologies of the disorder.

RESULTS: Neurobiological data on posttraumatic disorders and somatoform disorders are diverse and not uniform. This is even more true when it comes to those disorders that are within the intersection of these two entities and, above all, their special features in the elderly. Psychophysiological, neuroanatomical, endocrine-immunological, genetic, and epigenetic factors play an important role here. With regard to posttraumatic stress disorder, for example, higher autonomic reactivity was observed, which indicates an acquired general sensitization of the nervous system.