Positive association between local brain hypercorrelations and posttraumatic stress disorder symptom severity.

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Psychiatry
• Medical Imaging

Background:

• Previous research indicates neural network anomalies in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), marked by heightened inter-area brain connectivity.
• The local, intra-area network dynamics in PTSD remain less understood.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate and compare local, intra-area brain network interactions in veterans with PTSD versus healthy controls.
• To examine the relationship between PTSD symptom severity and local brain network correlations.

Main Methods:

• Utilized resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) BOLD time series data.
• Analyzed cross-correlations within 84 brain regions (cortical and subcortical) after prewhitening the data.
• Compared intra-area correlations between 15 veterans with PTSD and 21 healthy controls.

Main Results:

• Intra-area correlations were significantly higher in individuals with PTSD compared to controls.
• This finding suggests a restriction in local network flexibility within the brains of those with PTSD.
• Increased local correlations, especially in frontal and limbic areas, were positively associated with PTSD symptom severity.

Conclusions:

• Posttraumatic stress disorder is associated with reduced local brain network flexibility.
• Altered intra-area brain connectivity may be a neural marker for PTSD and its symptom severity.