  Turbulence has a profound impact on the evolution of gas and dust in
protoplanetary disks (PPDs), from driving the collisions and the diffusion of
dust grains, to the concentration of pebbles in giant vortices, thus,
facilitating planetesimal formation. The Vertical Shear Instability (VSI) is a
hydrodynamic mechanism, operating in PPDs if the local rate of thermal
relaxation is high enough. Previous studies of the VSI have, however, relied on
the assumption of constant cooling rates, or neglected the finite coupling time
between the gas particles and the dust grains. Here, we present the results of
hydrodynamic simulations of PPDs with the PLUTO code that include a more
realistic thermal relaxation prescription, which enables us to study the VSI in
the optically thick and optically thin parts of the disk under consideration of
the thermal dust-gas coupling. We show the VSI to cause turbulence even in the
optically thick inner regions of PPDs in our two- and three-dimensional
simulations. The collisional decoupling of dust and gas particles in the upper
atmosphere and the correspondingly inefficient thermal relaxation rates lead to
the damping of the VSI turbulence. Long-lived anticyclonic vortices form in our
three-dimensional simulation. These structures emerge from the turbulence in
the VSI-active layer, persist over hundreds of orbits and extend vertically
over the whole extent of the turbulent region. We conclude that the VSI leads
to turbulence and the formation of long-lived dust traps within $\pm$3 pressure
scale heights distance from the disk midplane
