• Arch Gen Psychiat · Feb 2004

    Regional cerebral blood flow in the amygdala and medial prefrontal cortex during traumatic imagery in male and female Vietnam veterans with PTSD.

    • Lisa M Shin, Scott P Orr, Margaret A Carson, Scott L Rauch, Michael L Macklin, Natasha B Lasko, Patricia Marzol Peters, Linda J Metzger, Darin D Dougherty, Paul A Cannistraro, Nathaniel M Alpert, Alan J Fischman, and Roger K Pitman.
    • Department of Psychology, Tufts University, Medford, MA 02155, USA. lisa.shin@tufts.edu
    • Arch Gen Psychiat. 2004 Feb 1;61(2):168-76.

    ContextTheoretical neuroanatomic models of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and the results of previous neuroimaging studies of PTSD highlight the potential importance of the amygdala and medial prefrontal regions in this disorder. However, the functional relationship between these brain regions in PTSD has not been directly examined.ObjectiveTo examine the relationship between the amygdala and medial prefrontal regions during symptom provocation in male combat veterans (MCVs) and female nurse veterans (FNVs) with PTSD.DesignCase-control study.SettingAcademic medical center.ParticipantsVolunteer sample of 17 (7 men and 10 women) Vietnam veterans with PTSD (PTSD group) and 19 (9 men and 10 women) Vietnam veterans without PTSD (control group).Main Outcome MeasuresWe used positron emission tomography and the script-driven imagery paradigm to study regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) during the recollection of personal traumatic and neutral events. Psychophysiologic and emotional self-report data also were obtained to confirm the intended effects of script-driven imagery.ResultsThe PTSD group exhibited rCBF decreases in medial frontal gyrus in the traumatic vs neutral comparison. When this comparison was conducted separately by subgroup, MCVs and FNVs with PTSD exhibited these medial frontal gyrus decreases. Only MCVs exhibited rCBF increases in the left amygdala. However, for both subgroups with PTSD, rCBF changes in medial frontal gyrus were inversely correlated with rCBF changes in the left amygdala and the right amygdala/periamygdaloid cortex. Furthermore, in the traumatic condition, for both subgroups with PTSD, symptom severity was positively related to rCBF in the right amygdala and negatively related to rCBF in medial frontal gyrus.ConclusionsThese results suggest a reciprocal relationship between medial prefrontal cortex and amygdala function in PTSD and opposing associations between activity in these regions and symptom severity consistent with current functional neuroanatomic models of this disorder.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…