School of Psychological Sciences, University of Newcastle, Australia; School of Psychology, UNSW Sydney, Australia.
School of Psychological Sciences, University of Newcastle, Australia; Academic Department of Psychiatry, Northern Sydney Local Health District, CADE Clinic, Royal North Shore Hospital, Northern Sydney Local Health District, St Leonards, NSW 2065, Australia.
J Affect Disord. 2024 Sep 15;361:268-276. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2024.06.009. Epub 2024 Jun 10.
While self-construal and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are independently associated with altered self-referential processes and underlying default mode network (DMN) functioning, no study has examined how self-construal affects DMN connectivity in PTSD.
A final sample of 93 refugee participants (48 with DSM-5 PTSD or sub-syndromal PTSD and 45 matched trauma-exposed controls) completed a 5-minute resting state fMRI scan to enable the observation of connectivity in the DMN and other core networks. A self-construal index was calculated by substracting scores on the collectivistic and individualistic sub-scales of the Self Construal Scale.
Independent components analysis identified 9 active networks-of-interest, and functional network connectivity was determined. A significant interaction effect between PTSD and self-construal index was observed in the anterior ventromedial DMN, with spatial maps localizing this to the left ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), extending to the ventral anterior cingulate cortex. This effect revealed that connectivity in the vMPFC showed greater reductions in those with PTSD with higher levels of collectivistic self-construal.
This is an observational study and causality cannot be assumed. The specialized sample of refugees means that the findings may not generalize to other trauma-exposed populations.
Such a finding indicates that self-construal may shape the core neural architecture of PTSD, given that functional disruptions to the vmPFC underpin the core mechanisms of extinction learning, emotion dysregulation and self-referential processing in PTSD. Results have important implications for understanding the universality of neural disturbances in PTSD, and suggest that self-construal could be an important consideration in the assessment and treatment of post-traumatic stress reactions.
虽然自我建构和创伤后应激障碍（PTSD）都与改变自我参照过程和潜在的默认模式网络（DMN）功能有关，但没有研究探讨自我建构如何影响 PTSD 中的 DMN 连接。
最终纳入了 93 名难民参与者（48 名符合 DSM-5 PTSD 或亚综合征 PTSD，45 名匹配的创伤暴露对照者），他们完成了 5 分钟的静息状态 fMRI 扫描，以观察 DMN 和其他核心网络的连接。自我建构指数通过减去自我建构量表的集体主义和个人主义子量表的分数来计算。
独立成分分析确定了 9 个活跃的网络，确定了功能网络连接。在腹侧前扣带皮层的左侧腹内侧前额叶皮质（vmPFC）定位的前腹内侧 DMN 中观察到 PTSD 和自我建构指数之间的显著交互效应，这表明在 PTSD 中，vmPFC 的连接在具有更高集体主义自我建构水平的患者中表现出更大的降低。
这是一项观察性研究，不能假设因果关系。难民这一特殊样本意味着研究结果可能不适用于其他创伤暴露人群。
这种发现表明，自我建构可能塑造 PTSD 的核心神经结构，因为 vmPFC 的功能障碍是 PTSD 中消退学习、情绪调节和自我参照处理的核心机制的基础。研究结果对理解 PTSD 中神经紊乱的普遍性具有重要意义，并表明自我建构可能是评估和治疗创伤后应激反应的一个重要考虑因素。
