Dichotic listening performance suggests right hemisphere involvement in PTSD

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Psychology
• Linguistics

Background:

• Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is linked to cognitive impairments, including executive dysfunction and altered brain activity.
• Callosal transfer deficits and right hemisphere overactivation are hypothesized to affect information processing in PTSD.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate language laterality using dichotic listening (DL) in refugees diagnosed with PTSD.
• To explore the relationship between PTSD symptoms and auditory processing in a trauma-exposed population.

Main Methods:

• Dichotic listening (DL) to consonant-vowel (CV) syllables was administered to 22 refugees with PTSD and 23 controls.
• Free recall and directed attention tasks under a forced attention paradigm were employed.
• Performance was correlated with self-reported arousal and intrusive memories.

Main Results:

• The PTSD group exhibited an increased right ear advantage, attributed to impaired left ear reporting.
• Attention modulation was significantly smaller in the PTSD group compared to controls.
• These auditory processing differences correlated with PTSD symptom severity.

Conclusions:

• PTSD in refugees is associated with atypical language laterality and reduced attention modulation during dichotic listening.
• Findings suggest potential impairments in frontal lobe function, right hemisphere processing, and/or callosal transfer.
• These deficits may underlie altered auditory processing and cognitive control in individuals with PTSD.