Abstract
Objectives: The current study was designed to examine the features of emotional memory that are associated with posttraumatic stress disorder and to investigate whether emotional memory and neuropsychological function predict the severity of PTSD symptoms. Method: Forty-five domestic violence victims were recruited and separated into the PTSD and N-PTSD groups, and 31 healthy volunteers were recruited as the normal control group. All participants filled out self-report instruments and underwent neuropsychological testing as well as an unexpected memory task (emotional memory questionnaire, EMQ) after watching a film on domestic violence. The questionnaire evaluated the participants’ memory of the central aspects of the film (EMQ-C) and the peripheral aspects of the film (EMQ-P). Results: The PTSD group scored lower on the EMQ-C, whereas there were no significant differences for the EMQ-P or neuropsychological measures among the three groups. Additionally, the Modified Card Sorting Test (MCST), category fluency, Verbal Paired Associates and EMQ-C predicted the PTSD symptoms. Conclusions: Both the index of the emotional memory and the perseverative error of MCST are powerful predictors of the severity levels of PTSD symptoms.
Highlights
According to the DSM-IV (American Psychiatric Association, 1994), the diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) requires a recognized stressor to which a person has been personally exposed or witnessed a traumatic stressor
This finding indicates that exposure to a traumatic event is insufficient for developing PTSD and that other individual vulnerability or predisposing factors may contribute to the development and maintenance of PTSD
The neurocircuitry models of PTSD posit that both hippocampal dysfunction and amygdala hyperactivity are related to the performance of emotional memory in PTSD [8,16]
Summary
According to the DSM-IV (American Psychiatric Association, 1994), the diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) requires a recognized stressor to which a person has been personally exposed or witnessed a traumatic stressor (criteria A). Previous studies showed that for earthquake trauma [4] or interpersonal violence [5], the rates of survivors with PTSD gradually decreases during the time since the traumatic events. This finding indicates that exposure to a traumatic event is insufficient for developing PTSD and that other individual vulnerability or predisposing factors may contribute to the development and maintenance of PTSD. Numerous neuroimaging studies have reported diminished activation in the hippocampus in PTSD [11,12,13] or significant hippocampal volume reduction in PTSD patients [14,15]. Hippocampal volume reduction and activity dysfunction may contribute to the etiology and maintenance of PTSD [18,19]
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