Brain Activity Patterns After Trauma May Predict Long-Term Mental Health, Likelihood of Stress Disorders

How people ’s brains respond to stress following a traumatic event may help to predict their long-term mental health outcomes, suggests astudy published Thursday in AJP in Advance.Jennifer Stevens, Ph.D., of Emory University and colleagues analyzed data from 69 participants in the AURORA study, a large-scale, multisite study funded by the National Institute of Mental Health that follows patients for a full year after exposure to trauma. The 69 patients in the current study received treatment in an emergency department following a car accident.Two weeks after their accidents, the participants had their brain activity measured via functional MRI while they completed a series of standard computer-based tasks. The tasks assessed their brain activity in response to social threat cues, reward cues, and situations that required them to inhibit a response. Over the next six months, the participants also completed digital surveys in which they reported their mental health symptoms, including symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, dissociation, anxiety, and impulsivity.Analyses of the participants ’ brain activity data revealed the following four distinct profiles:Reactive/disinhibited: High reactivity related to both threat and reward, little activity related to response inhibitionLow reward/high threat: High reactivity related to threat, low reactivity related to rewardHigh reward: No reactivity related to threat, little activity related to response inhibit...
Source: Psychiatr News - Category: Psychiatry Tags: ajp in advance anxiety AURORA brain activity patterns inhibition posttraumatic stress disorder reward Source Type: research