TY - JOUR
T1 - Decreased somatosensory activity to non-threatening touch in combat veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder
AU - Badura-Brack, Amy S.
AU - Becker, Katherine M.
AU - McDermott, Timothy J.
AU - Ryan, Tara J.
AU - Becker, Madelyn M.
AU - Hearley, Allison R.
AU - Heinrichs-Graham, Elizabeth
AU - Wilson, Tony W.
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported by a grant from the nonprofit organization At Ease, USA to ABB, by a Creighton University College of Arts and Science Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (TJM), and Grant R01-MH103220 from the National Institutes of Health to TWW. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd.
Copyright:
Copyright 2017 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2015/8/30
Y1 - 2015/8/30
N2 - Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a severe psychiatric disorder prevalent in combat veterans. Previous neuroimaging studies have demonstrated that patients with PTSD exhibit abnormal responses to non-threatening visual and auditory stimuli, but have not examined somatosensory processing. Thirty male combat veterans, 16 with PTSD and 14 without, completed a tactile stimulation task during a 306-sensor magnetoencephalography (MEG) recording. Significant oscillatory neural responses were imaged using a beamforming approach. Participants also completed clinical assessments of PTSD, combat exposure, and depression. We found that veterans with PTSD exhibited significantly reduced activity during early (0-125. ms) tactile processing compared with combat controls. Specifically, veterans with PTSD had weaker activity in the left postcentral gyrus, left superior parietal area, and right prefrontal cortex in response to nonthreatening tactile stimulation relative to veterans without PTSD. The magnitude of activity in these brain regions was inversely correlated with symptom severity, indicating that those with the most severe PTSD had the most abnormal neural responses. Our findings are consistent with a resource allocation view of perceptual processing in PTSD, which directs attention away from nonthreatening sensory information.
AB - Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a severe psychiatric disorder prevalent in combat veterans. Previous neuroimaging studies have demonstrated that patients with PTSD exhibit abnormal responses to non-threatening visual and auditory stimuli, but have not examined somatosensory processing. Thirty male combat veterans, 16 with PTSD and 14 without, completed a tactile stimulation task during a 306-sensor magnetoencephalography (MEG) recording. Significant oscillatory neural responses were imaged using a beamforming approach. Participants also completed clinical assessments of PTSD, combat exposure, and depression. We found that veterans with PTSD exhibited significantly reduced activity during early (0-125. ms) tactile processing compared with combat controls. Specifically, veterans with PTSD had weaker activity in the left postcentral gyrus, left superior parietal area, and right prefrontal cortex in response to nonthreatening tactile stimulation relative to veterans without PTSD. The magnitude of activity in these brain regions was inversely correlated with symptom severity, indicating that those with the most severe PTSD had the most abnormal neural responses. Our findings are consistent with a resource allocation view of perceptual processing in PTSD, which directs attention away from nonthreatening sensory information.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84938702559&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84938702559&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.pscychresns.2015.06.012
DO - 10.1016/j.pscychresns.2015.06.012
M3 - Article
C2 - 26184460
AN - SCOPUS:84938702559
VL - 233
SP - 194
EP - 200
JO - Psychiatry Research - Neuroimaging
JF - Psychiatry Research - Neuroimaging
SN - 0925-4927
IS - 2
ER -