Department of Radiology, the Affiliated Yixing Hospital of Jiangsu University, Tongzhenguan Road, Wuxi 214200, Jiangsu, China; Department of Medical Imaging, Jinling Hospital, Medical School of Nanjing University, No.305 Zhongshan RD, Nanjing, 210002, Jiangsu, China.
Department of Medical Imaging, Jinling Hospital, Medical School of Nanjing University, No.305 Zhongshan RD, Nanjing, 210002, Jiangsu, China.
J Affect Disord. 2019 Oct 1;257:632-639. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2019.07.004. Epub 2019 Jul 3.
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is associated with disruption of the brain network topology; however, little is known about the topological changes and sex effects in PTSD patients following a unique trauma, the loss of an only child, in China.
Fifty-one lost-only-child parents with PTSD, 93 lost-only-child non-PTSD parents (NPTSD), and 50 healthy subjects underwent resting-state functional MRI. The whole-brain functional network was constructed by thresholding partial correlation matrices of 90 brain regions. Group differences in the topological properties, the diagnosis-by-sex interaction, and the relationships between topological metrics and clinical variables were investigated.
Compared with healthy subjects, PTSD and NPTSD groups exhibited significantly shorter path lengths and higher nodal centralities in many brain regions across sexes; however, no significant difference was found between the PTSD and NPTSD groups. Additionally, the global topological metrics did not show any sex difference, whereas the nodal centralities in the left insula, right inferior frontal gyrus, and right posterior cingulate cortex differed significantly only in women, and the nodal centralities in the bilateral anterior cingulate cortices and left hippocampus were significantly different only in men. Furthermore, the nodal centralities of the right parahippocampus demonstrated significant diagnosis-by-sex interaction.
Cross-sectional design of this study could not demonstrate the causality.
The parents who lost their only child exhibited a shift toward randomization and significant nodal topological alterations independent of PTSD effects. Additionally, sex differences were observed primarily in the topological properties at the nodal level, which may indicate a neurobiological contribution to the greater incidence of PTSD in females.
创伤后应激障碍（PTSD）与大脑网络拓扑结构的破坏有关；然而，在中国，对于经历了一种独特创伤（失去独生子）的 PTSD 患者，其大脑拓扑结构的变化和性别效应知之甚少。
51 名患有 PTSD 的失去独生子的父母、93 名失去独生子但未患 PTSD 的父母（NPTSD）和 50 名健康对照者接受了静息态功能磁共振成像。通过对 90 个脑区的部分相关矩阵进行阈值处理，构建全脑功能网络。研究了拓扑性质的组间差异、诊断与性别的交互作用以及拓扑度量与临床变量之间的关系。
与健康对照组相比，PTSD 组和 NPTSD 组在多个脑区的路径长度明显缩短，节点中心度明显升高，且这种性别间的差异在两组中均存在；然而，PTSD 组和 NPTSD 组之间并未发现显著差异。此外，全局拓扑度量没有表现出任何性别差异，而左侧岛叶、右侧额下回和右侧后扣带回的节点中心度仅在女性中存在显著差异，双侧前扣带回和左侧海马的节点中心度仅在男性中存在显著差异。此外，右侧海马旁回的节点中心度表现出显著的诊断与性别的交互作用。
本研究的横断面设计不能证明因果关系。
失去独生子的父母表现出随机化的转变，且节点拓扑结构发生了显著改变，这与 PTSD 效应无关。此外，在节点水平的拓扑性质上观察到性别差异，这可能表明女性 PTSD 发病率较高与神经生物学有关。
