Abstract
Traumatic events can produce emotional, cognitive and autonomous physical responses. This may ultimately lead to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a psychiatric syndrome which requires comprehensive treatment. Trauma exposure alters functional connectivity; however, onset and nature of these changes are unknown. Here, we explore functional connectivity changes at rest directly after experimental trauma exposure. Seventy-three healthy subjects watched either a trauma or a control film. Resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging measurements were conducted before and directly after the film. Seed-based analyses revealed trauma-related changes in functional connectivity, specifically including decreases of connectivity between amygdala and middle temporal gyrus and increases between hippocampus and precuneus. These central effects were accompanied by trauma-related increases in heart rate. Moreover, connectivity between the amygdala and middle temporal gyrus predicted subsequent trauma-related valence. Our results demonstrate rapid functional connectivity changes in memory-related brain regions at rest after experimental trauma, selectively relating to changes in emotions evoked by the trauma manipulation. Results could represent an early predictive biomarker for the development of trauma-related PTSD and thus provide an indication for the need of early targeted preventive interventions.
Highlights
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a psychiatric condition characterized by intrusive and avoidant symp-Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland 4 Competence Center of Sleep & Health Zurich, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland 5 Department of Medicine, Surgery and Dentistry “Scuola MedicaSalernitana”, University of Salerno, Baronissi Salerno, Italy 6 Department of Psychology, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland toms, negative alterations in cognition and mood, and increases in arousal (APA 2013)
We further examined whether there was a significant correlation between heart rate and post-film amygdala-middle temporal gyrus (MTG) and hippocampus -precuneus connectivity, within both control and experimental trauma participant subsamples
The effectiveness of the paradigm was validated by significant changes in current mental state, trauma related valence and arousal, intrusions and heart rate induced by the experimental trauma condition
Summary
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a psychiatric condition characterized by intrusive and avoidant symp-. A disadvantage of measuring resting state days or weeks, instead of minutes, after trauma is that variables such as sleep, stress coping and other environmental factors may interact with PTSD development and intrusion symptoms (Holmes and Bourne 2008; Kleim et al 2016; Meiser-Stedman et al 2009; Woud et al 2012) These factors could potentially alter the original structure of trauma. We hypothesize that the hippocampus will be associated with altered memory integration into the neocortex for the trauma film group after the film compared to prefilm resting state and compared to resting state scans of the control film group These selected seed regions are expected to be of central importance for threat and memory processing after experimental trauma
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