Dataset Information

Resting State Functional Connectivity of the Thalamus in North Korean Refugees with and without Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.

ABSTRACT: In posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), functional connectivity (FC) between the thalamus and other brain areas has yet to be comprehensively investigated. The present study explored resting state FC (rsFC) of thalamus and its associations with trauma-related features. The included subjects were North Korean refugees with PTSD (n?=?23), trauma-exposed North Korean refugees without PTSD (trauma-exposed control [TEC] group, n?=?22), and South Korean healthy controls (HCs) without traumatic experiences (HC group, n?=?40). All participants underwent psychiatric evaluation and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) procedures using the bilateral thalamus as seeds. In the TEC group, the negative rsFC between each thalamus and its contralateral postcentral cortex was stronger relative to the PTSD and HC groups, while positive rsFC between the left thalamus and left precentral cortex was stronger in the HC group compared to the PTSD and TEC groups. Thalamo-postcentral rsFC was positively correlated with the CAPS total score in the TEC group, and with the number of traumatic experiences in the PTSD group. The present study identified the difference of thalamic rsFC alterations among traumatized refugees and HCs. Negative rsFC between the thalamus and somatosensory cortices might be compensatory changes after multiple traumatic events in refugees.

SUBMITTER: Jeon S

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7035375 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Resting State Functional Connectivity of the Thalamus in North Korean Refugees with and without Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.

Jeon Sehyun S Lee Yu Jin YJ Park Inkyung I Kim Nambeom N Kim Soohyun S Jun Jin Yong JY Yoo So Young SY Lee So Hee SH Kim Seog Ju SJ

Scientific reports 20200221 1

In posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), functional connectivity (FC) between the thalamus and other brain areas has yet to be comprehensively investigated. The present study explored resting state FC (rsFC) of thalamus and its associations with trauma-related features. The included subjects were North Korean refugees with PTSD (n = 23), trauma-exposed North Korean refugees without PTSD (trauma-exposed control [TEC] group, n = 22), and South Korean healthy controls (HCs) without traumatic experi ...[more]

PMID: 32081883

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Project description:BackgroundPrefrontal subregions, including the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (PFC), dorsomedial PFC, and dorsolateral PFC (DLPFC), are differentially implicated in the pathophysiology of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), though few existing studies have examined subregional differences in resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC). We hypothesized that PTSD would involve weaker positive rsFC between ventromedial PFC, dorsomedial PFC, and other default mode network regions and increased negative rsFC between DLPFC and posterior default mode network regions. Additionally, we hypothesized that prefrontal regions exhibiting group differences in rsFC would be characterized by alterations in cortical thickness.MethodsParticipants included 36 healthy control subjects, 30 trauma-exposed control subjects, and 21 individuals with current DSM-IV PTSD resulting from community-acquired trauma. Participants completed the Clinician Administered PTSD Scale, questionnaires (Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, Adverse Childhood Events, Life Events Checklist, Beck Depression Inventory), structural neuroimaging, and resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging. rsFC of DLPFC, ventromedial PFC, and dorsomedial PFC seeds was evaluated in SPM12 and CONN. Cortical thickness for regions with significant rsFC findings was assessed using FreeSurfer.ResultsRelative to both healthy control and trauma-exposed control subjects, individuals with PTSD showed increased negative rsFC between the DLPFC and a region of precuneus. This finding was associated with increased overall symptom severity but not with trauma load or childhood trauma exposure. Greater negative DLPFC-precuneus connectivity was associated with greater bilateral precuneus thickness.ConclusionsGiven participation of precuneus subregions in the central executive network, increased anticorrelation between right DLPFC and precuneus in this sample may reflect increased opposition between anterior and posterior central executive network hubs in PTSD.

Project description:Altered resting-state functional connectivity in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) suggests neuropathology of the disorder. While seed-based fMRI connectivity analysis is often used for the studies, such analysis requires defining a seed location a priori, which restricts search scope and could bias findings toward presupposed areas. Recently, a comprehensive exploratory voxel-wise connectivity analysis, the connectome-wide association approach, has been introduced using multivariate distance matrix regression (MDMR) for resting-state functional connectivity analysis. The current study performed a connectome-wide investigation of resting-state functional connectivity for war veterans with and without PTSD compared to non-trauma-exposed healthy controls using MDMR. Thirty-five male combat veterans with PTSD (unmedicated), 18 male combat veterans without PTSD (veterans control, VC), and 28 age-matched non-trauma-exposed healthy males (NC) participated in a resting-state fMRI scan. MDMR analysis was used to identify between-groups differences in regions with altered connectivity. The identified regions were used as a seed for post-hoc functional connectivity analysis. The analysis revealed that PTSD patients had hypoconnectivity between the left lateral prefrontal regions and the salience network regions as well as hypoconnectivity between the parahippocampal gyrus and the visual cortex areas. Connectivity between the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and the middle frontal gyrus and between the parahippocampal gyrus and the anterior insula were negatively correlated with PTSD symptom severity. VC subjects also had altered functional connectivity compared to NC, including increased connectivity between the posterior insula and several brain regions and decreased connectivity between the precuneus region and several other brain areas. The decreased connectivity between the lateral prefrontal regions and the salience network regions in PTSD was consistent with previous reports that indicated lowered emotion-regulation function in these regions. The decreased connectivity between the parahippocampal gyrus and visual cortex supported the dual representation theory of PTSD, which suggests dissociation between sensory and contextual memory representations in PTSD. The theory also supposes that the precuneus is a region that triggers retrieval of sensory memory of traumatic events. The decreased connectivity at the precuneus for VC might be associated with suppressing such a process.

Dataset Information

Resting State Functional Connectivity of the Thalamus in North Korean Refugees with and without Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.

Publications

Resting State Functional Connectivity of the Thalamus in North Korean Refugees with and without Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.

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