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Developing Neuroimaging Phenotypes of the Default Mode Network in PTSD: Integrating the Resting State, Working Memory, and Structural Connectivity
Published on: July 1, 2014
Increased anterior cingulate cortex and hippocampus activation in Complex PTSD during encoding of negative words
Kathleen Thomaes1, Ethy Dorrepaal, Nel Draijer
1Department of Psychiatry, GGZ InGeest/VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. k.thomaes@vumc.nl
Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience
|December 14, 2011
Summary
Complex Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) shows altered brain activity in memory and emotion regions. Severity of trauma and depression impacts these neurocognitive changes.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Psychiatry
- Cognitive Psychology
Background:
- Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is linked to memory deficits and altered brain function in memory and emotion regulation areas.
- The impact of symptom severity and comorbidities on neurocognitive functioning in PTSD remains unclear.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate functional brain changes during emotional memory encoding in Complex PTSD patients with comorbid disorders.
- To explore the relationship between symptom severity (child abuse, depression) and neurocognitive alterations in Complex PTSD.
Main Methods:
- Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to assess brain activity during an emotional declarative memory task.
- Participants included 28 Complex PTSD patients (with comorbid depression/personality disorders) and 21 healthy controls.
Main Results:
- Complex PTSD patients exhibited increased blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) response in the ventral and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), extending to the dmPFC, and a trend for increased left hippocampus activation during negative word encoding.
- Patients showed more False Alarms for negative words, correlated with enhanced left ventrolateral prefrontal and orbitofrontal cortex (vlPFC/OFC) activity.
- Child abuse severity correlated with left ventral ACC activity; depression severity correlated with (para)hippocampal and ventral ACC activity.
Conclusions:
- Complex PTSD is associated with functional abnormalities in the frontolimbic circuit, potentially in opposition to fear conditioning models.
- These abnormalities may be influenced by trauma severity and comorbid depression severity in Complex PTSD.
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