Background Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is thought to be characterized by general heightened amygdala activation. However, this hypothesis is mainly based on specific studies presenting fear or trauma-related stimuli, hence, a thorough investigation of trauma-unrelated emotional processing in PTSD is needed.Methods In this study, 31 male medication-naive veterans with PTSD, 28 male control veterans (combat controls, CC) and 25 non-military men (healthy controls, HC) were included.