Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Missouri-St. Louis, 1 University Blvd., St. Louis, MO, 63121, USA.
Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Missouri-St. Louis, 1 University Blvd., St. Louis, MO, 63121, USA.
Behav Brain Res. 2021 Jun 11;407:113258. doi: 10.1016/j.bbr.2021.113258. Epub 2021 Mar 26.
Anhedonia, marked by deficits in reward processing, is a prominent symptom of several psychiatric conditions and has been shown to influence functional connectivity between reward-related regions. However, the unique influence of anhedonia severity on reward circuit connectivity in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) remains unclear. To address this, we examined resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) of the ventral striatum as a function of anhedonia for individuals with PTSD. Resting-state functional MRI scans and behavioral assessments were collected for 71 women diagnosed with PTSD. Seed-based voxelwise rsFC analyses for left and right nucleus accumbens (NAcc) seed regions of interest were performed. Voxelwise regression analyses were conducted to examine the relationship between anhedonia severity and rsFC of left and right NAcc. Results indicated that greater anhedonia severity was associated with reduced rsFC between the left NAcc and a cluster in the left caudate extending to the thalamus. This relationship between anhedonia and rsFC remained significant after controlling for PTSD symptom severity or depression severity. Our findings suggest that reward circuit dysfunction at rest is associated with anhedonia in PTSD. These results further contribute to our understanding of the neural correlates of anhedonia in psychiatric conditions.
快感缺失，表现为奖赏处理缺陷，是几种精神疾病的突出症状，并已被证明会影响与奖赏相关区域之间的功能连接。然而，快感缺失严重程度对创伤后应激障碍（PTSD）中奖励回路连接的独特影响尚不清楚。为了解决这个问题，我们研究了快感缺失对 PTSD 个体的腹侧纹状体静息状态功能连接（rsFC）的影响。为 71 名被诊断患有 PTSD 的女性采集了静息态功能磁共振成像扫描和行为评估。对左、右伏隔核（NAcc）感兴趣的种子区域进行了基于种子的体素水平 rsFC 分析。进行了体素水平回归分析，以检验快感缺失严重程度与左、右 NAcc 的 rsFC 之间的关系。结果表明，快感缺失严重程度与左 NAcc 与左尾状核的一个簇之间的 rsFC 降低有关，该簇延伸至丘脑。在控制 PTSD 症状严重程度或抑郁严重程度后，这种快感缺失与 rsFC 之间的关系仍然显著。我们的研究结果表明，静息时的奖励回路功能障碍与 PTSD 中的快感缺失有关。这些结果进一步加深了我们对精神疾病中快感缺失的神经相关因素的理解。
