Seeley Saren H, Fremont Rachel, Schreiber Zoe, Morris Laurel S, Cahn Leah, Murrough James W, Schiller Daniela, Charney Dennis S, Pietrzak Robert H, Perez-Rodriguez M Mercedes, Feder Adriana
Depression and Anxiety Center for Discovery and Treatment, Department of Psychiatry, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York.
Department of Neuroscience, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York.
Biol Psychiatry Glob Open Sci. 2025 Mar 20;5(4):100489. doi: 10.1016/j.bpsgos.2025.100489. eCollection 2025 Jul.
Despite their exposure to potentially traumatic stressors, the majority of World Trade Center (WTC) responders-those who worked on rescue, recovery, and cleanup efforts on or following September 11, 2001-have shown psychological resilience, never developing long-term psychopathology. Psychological resilience may be protective against the earlier age-related cognitive changes associated with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in this cohort. In the current study, we calculated the difference between estimated brain age from structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data and chronological age in WTC responders who participated in a parent functional MRI study of resilience ( = 97). We hypothesized that highly resilient responders would show the least brain aging and explored associations between brain aging and psychological and cognitive measures.
WTC responders screened for the absence of cognitive impairment were classified into 3 groups: a WTC-related PTSD group ( = 32), a Highly Resilient group without lifetime psychopathology despite high WTC-related exposure ( = 34), and a Lower WTC-Exposed control group also without lifetime psychopathology ( = 31). We used , a deep learning algorithm that estimates voxelwise age from T1-weighted MRI data to calculate decelerated (or accelerated) brain aging relative to chronological age.
Globally, brain aging was decelerated in the Highly Resilient group and accelerated in the PTSD group, with a significant group difference ( = .021, Cohen's = 0.58); the Lower WTC-Exposed control group exhibited no significant brain age gap or group difference. Lesser brain aging was associated with resilience-linked factors including lower emotional suppression, greater optimism, and better verbal learning.
Cognitively healthy WTC responders show differences in brain aging related to resilience and PTSD.
尽管世贸中心（WTC）的大多数应急人员——即在2001年9月11日当天或之后参与救援、恢复和清理工作的人员——暴露于潜在的创伤性应激源之下，但他们表现出了心理韧性，从未出现长期精神病理学问题。心理韧性可能对该队列中与创伤后应激障碍（PTSD）相关的早期年龄相关认知变化具有保护作用。在本研究中，我们计算了参与一项关于韧性的功能性磁共振成像（MRI）母研究的世贸中心应急人员（n = 97）的结构MRI数据估计脑龄与实际年龄之间的差异。我们假设高韧性的应急人员脑老化程度最低，并探讨了脑老化与心理和认知指标之间的关联。
筛选出无认知障碍的世贸中心应急人员分为3组：与世贸中心相关的创伤后应激障碍组（n = 32）、尽管暴露于世贸中心相关的高风险环境但无终生精神病理学问题的高韧性组（n = 34）以及同样无终生精神病理学问题的低世贸中心暴露对照组（n = 31）。我们使用一种深度学习算法，该算法从T1加权MRI数据估计体素年龄，以计算相对于实际年龄的减速（或加速）脑老化。
总体而言，高韧性组脑老化减速，创伤后应激障碍组脑老化加速，组间差异显著（p = 0.021，Cohen's d = 0.58）；低世贸中心暴露对照组未表现出显著的脑龄差距或组间差异。较小的脑老化与韧性相关因素有关，包括较低的情绪抑制、更高的乐观主义和更好的言语学习能力。
认知健康的世贸中心应急人员在与韧性和创伤后应激障碍相关的脑老化方面存在差异。
