Department of Psychiatry, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Samsung Medical Center, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
Department of Psychiatry and Center for Sleep and Chronobiology, Seoul National University College of Medicine and Seoul National University Hospital, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
Sci Rep. 2020 Feb 21;10(1):3194. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-59815-5.
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.
在创伤后应激障碍 (PTSD) 中，丘脑与其他脑区之间的功能连接 (FC) 尚未得到全面研究。本研究探讨了丘脑的静息状态 FC(rsFC)及其与创伤相关特征的关系。纳入的研究对象为患有 PTSD 的朝鲜难民 (n=23)、经历过创伤但未患有 PTSD 的朝鲜难民 (创伤暴露对照组[TEC]，n=22) 和无创伤经历的韩国健康对照者 (HC，n=40)。所有参与者均接受了精神病学评估和功能磁共振成像 (fMRI) 检查，以双侧丘脑为种子点。在 TEC 组中，与 PTSD 和 HC 组相比，每个丘脑与其对侧后中央皮质之间的负 rsFC 更强，而与 PTSD 和 TEC 组相比，HC 组左丘脑与左中央前皮质之间的正 rsFC 更强。丘脑-后中央 rsFC 与 TEC 组的 CAPS 总分呈正相关，与 PTSD 组的创伤次数呈正相关。本研究确定了创伤难民和 HC 之间丘脑 rsFC 改变的差异。丘脑与躯体感觉皮质之间的负 rsFC 可能是难民多次创伤事件后的代偿性变化。
