“What it tells us is that the brain is in a different state in the two memories,” said Daniela Schiller, a neuroscientist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and one of the authors of the study.

The traumatic memories appeared to engage a different area of the brain — the posterior cingulate cortex, or P.C.C., which is usually involved in internally directed thought, like introspection or daydreaming.

In recent years, many Americans have embraced treatments such as prolonged exposure therapy and eye movement reprocessing and desensitization, or EMDR, which revisit traumatic memories in hopes of draining them of their destructive force.

In therapy, trying to “build a story, a coherent memory,” the clinician helped the medic fill in details around the edges of that scene, including a dead soldier who lay nearby, shooting in the background, and his own panicked use of too many bandages.

The posterior cingulate cortex is “really involved in the reliving of memories,” and in seeking self-relevance, which may explain why a sensory reminder may cause overwhelming fear or panic.

While most experts agree that motor vehicle accidents, sexual assaults or military combat are traumatic events, there is disagreement about whether experiences like racism or pandemic stress should be viewed as the basis for a PTSD diagnosis, he said.

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