Liu Yang, Li Baojuan, Feng Na, Pu Huangsheng, Zhang Xi, Lu Hongbing, Yin Hong
School of Biomedical Engineering, Fourth Military Medical University, Xi'an, Shaanxi, China.
Department of Physiology, Fourth Military Medical University, Xi'an, Shaanxi, China.
PLoS One. 2016 May 23;11(5):e0156016. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0156016. eCollection 2016.
To explore the potential alterations in cerebral blood flow (CBF) and functional connectivity of recent onset post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) induced by a single prolonged trauma exposure, we recruited 20 survivors experiencing the same coal mining flood disaster as the PTSD (n = 10) and non-PTSD (n = 10) group, respectively. The pulsed arterial spin labeling (ASL) images were acquired with a 3.0T MRI scanner and the partial volume (PV) effect in the images was corrected for better CBF estimation. Alterations in CBF were analyzed using both uncorrected and PV-corrected CBF maps. By using altered CBF regions as regions-of-interest, seed-based functional connectivity analysis was then performed. While only one CBF deficit in right corpus callosum of PTSD patients was detected using uncorrected CBF, three more regions (bilateral frontal lobes and right superior frontal gyrus) were identified using PV-corrected CBF. Furthermore, the regional CBF of right superior frontal gyrus exhibited significantly negative correlation with the symptom severity (r = -0.759, p = 0.018). The resting-state functional connectivity analysis revealed increased connectivity between left frontal lobe and right parietal lobe. The results indicated the symptom-specific perfusion deficits and an aberrant connectivity in memory-related regions of PTSD patients when using PV-corrected ASL data. It also suggested that PV-corrected CBF exhibits more subtle changes that may be beneficial to perfusion and connectivity analysis.
为了探究单次长时间创伤暴露所致近期起病的创伤后应激障碍（PTSD）患者脑血流量（CBF）和功能连接的潜在改变，我们招募了20名幸存者，他们分别经历了与PTSD组（n = 10）和非PTSD组（n = 10）相同的煤矿透水事故。使用3.0T MRI扫描仪采集动脉自旋标记（ASL）脉冲图像，并对图像中的部分容积（PV）效应进行校正，以更好地估计CBF。使用未校正和PV校正的CBF图分析CBF的改变。以CBF改变的区域作为感兴趣区，随后进行基于种子点的功能连接分析。使用未校正的CBF仅检测到PTSD患者右侧胼胝体的一个CBF缺损，而使用PV校正的CBF则识别出另外三个区域（双侧额叶和右侧额上回）。此外，右侧额上回的区域CBF与症状严重程度呈显著负相关（r = -0.759，p = 0.018）。静息态功能连接分析显示左额叶与右顶叶之间的连接增加。结果表明，使用PV校正的ASL数据时，PTSD患者在记忆相关区域存在症状特异性灌注缺损和异常连接。这也表明PV校正的CBF表现出更细微的变化，可能有利于灌注和连接分析。
