Rachel Yehuda, Ph.D., of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, seeks to understand the neurobiological mechanisms involved in resilience to trauma and to define markers that will allow researchers to predict how a person will respond to trauma. Dr. Yehuda has identified neuroendocrine (hormonal) and molecular predictors of resilience and markers of recovery from PTSD. Now, she will examine these predictors in combination with markers of brain structure and function. Dr. Yehuda will scan 15 trauma-exposed individuals with PTSD and 15 trauma-exposed individuals without PTSD. Her goal is to identify neural circuits associated with resilience to trauma as well as neuroimaging biomarkers of treatment response to cognitive therapy in PTSD. More broadly, Dr. Yehuda hopes that improved biomarkers for a patient’s response to trauma or the treatment of trauma will advance our understanding of the molecular mechanisms that underlie behavior.