Objective We sought to characterize the brain responses and structure of patients with acute severe post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD),and investigate the neurocircuit of PTSD.All subjects would be reevaluated at ten months after the coal mining accident for the longitudinal observations.Methods Twenty four individuals with acute severe PTSD resulting from the mining accident and 24 subjects exposed to the mining accident without PTSD underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while performing the emotional counting stroop,the symptom provocation and trauma related short-term memory recall paradigms.All three functional tasks were block designs.