Ulm University, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy III, Ulm, Germany.
Ulm University, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy III, Ulm, Germany.
Psychiatry Res Neuroimaging. 2020 Sep 30;303:111131. doi: 10.1016/j.pscychresns.2020.111131. Epub 2020 Jun 19.
In adults, trauma imagery has proven to be a useful tool to assess the neural mechanisms of psychological trauma processing. In adolescents, heterogeneous results could be found for other tasks, however, a trauma imagery paradigm has not been evaluated. For this purpose, we investigated a trauma imagery paradigm with control scripts to assess neural correlates of traumatic experiences in youth. 15 adolescents, who had experienced a traumatic interpersonal event in the past and have developed clinically relevant symptoms, underwent an fMRI scan while listening to their individual trauma- versus two control scripts (positive/negative). We analysed a parametric contrast of the imagery phases (trauma > negative > positive) which revealed activity in the thalamus, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, cuneus, dorsomedial prefrontal cortex and amygdala. Additionally, amygdala-activity correlated positively with depression-symptom-severity. Our data provide evidence for the feasibility of fMRI during a trauma imagery task in adolescents to investigate networks previously related to hyperarousal in adults with PTSD. Further, we demonstrate the specificity of the activated networks for trauma imagery as compared to imagery of other emotional situations. The task might be particularly useful to evaluate neural correlates of treatment in adolescents when hyperarousal is a target symptom.
在成年人中，创伤意象已被证明是评估心理创伤处理神经机制的有用工具。然而，对于其他任务，在青少年中可以找到不同的结果，但是尚未评估创伤意象范式。为此，我们研究了一种具有对照脚本的创伤意象范式，以评估年轻人创伤经历的神经相关性。 15 名青少年过去经历过创伤性人际事件，并出现了临床相关症状，他们在听个人创伤与两个对照脚本（积极/消极）时接受了 fMRI 扫描。我们分析了意象阶段（创伤>消极>积极）的参数对比，结果显示丘脑、背侧前扣带皮层、楔前叶、背内侧前额叶和杏仁核有活性。此外，杏仁核活性与抑郁症状严重程度呈正相关。我们的数据为青少年在 fMRI 期间进行创伤意象任务以研究与 PTSD 成人过度唤醒相关的网络提供了证据。此外，我们证明了与其他情绪情况的意象相比，激活网络的特异性适用于创伤意象。当过度唤醒是目标症状时，该任务对于评估青少年的治疗神经相关性可能特别有用。
