[Voxel based morphometric study of brain structure in patients with posttraumatic stress disorder]

Voxel based morphometry (VBM) methods are used to detect the difference in brain structures between the posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) sufferers and the normal controls. Standard VBM method can detect the difference of the gray matter or white matter densities while the optimized VBM method can detect the difference of gray matter or white matter volumes in the whole brain. The experiments showed that for the patient group, gray matter density or volumes significantly increased in the right frontal lobe, middle frontal gyrus, vermis, left caudate and parietal lobe, compared with the normal controls. However, in the left frontal lobe and middle frontal gyrus, gray matter density significantly decreased. There is no significant difference in white matter between the two groups. These results are consistent with those of the fMRI, which not only provide the evidence for further study of the pathogeny in PTSD but also validate the efficiency of the VBM methods for detecting the difference in the whole brain structure.