TY - JOUR
T1 - Veterans with PTSD demonstrate amygdala hyperactivity while viewing threatening faces
T2 - A MEG study
AU - Badura-Brack, Amy
AU - McDermott, Timothy J.
AU - Heinrichs-Graham, Elizabeth
AU - Ryan, Tara J.
AU - Khanna, Maya M.
AU - Pine, Daniel S.
AU - Bar-Haim, Yair
AU - Wilson, Tony W.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2018/2
Y1 - 2018/2
N2 - Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a major psychiatric disorder that is prevalent in combat veterans. Previous neuroimaging studies have found elevated amygdala activity in PTSD in response to threatening stimuli, but previous work has lacked the temporal specificity to study fast bottom-up fear responses involving the amygdala. Forty-four combat veterans, 28 with PTSD and 16 without, completed psychological testing and then a face-processing task during magnetoencephalography (MEG). The resulting MEG data were pre-processed, transformed into the time-frequency domain, and then imaged using a beamforming approach. We found that veterans with PTSD exhibited significantly stronger oscillatory activity from 50 to 450 ms in the left amygdala compared to veterans without PTSD while processing threatening faces. This group difference was not present while viewing neutral faces. The current study shows that amygdala hyperactivity in response to threatening cues begins quickly in PTSD, which makes theoretical sense as an adaptive bottom-up fear response.
AB - Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a major psychiatric disorder that is prevalent in combat veterans. Previous neuroimaging studies have found elevated amygdala activity in PTSD in response to threatening stimuli, but previous work has lacked the temporal specificity to study fast bottom-up fear responses involving the amygdala. Forty-four combat veterans, 28 with PTSD and 16 without, completed psychological testing and then a face-processing task during magnetoencephalography (MEG). The resulting MEG data were pre-processed, transformed into the time-frequency domain, and then imaged using a beamforming approach. We found that veterans with PTSD exhibited significantly stronger oscillatory activity from 50 to 450 ms in the left amygdala compared to veterans without PTSD while processing threatening faces. This group difference was not present while viewing neutral faces. The current study shows that amygdala hyperactivity in response to threatening cues begins quickly in PTSD, which makes theoretical sense as an adaptive bottom-up fear response.
KW - Bottom-up
KW - Fear
KW - Magnetoencephalography
KW - Military
KW - Oscillatory activity
KW - Posttraumatic stress
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85040317156&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2018.01.005
DO - 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2018.01.005
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C2 - 29309826
AN - SCOPUS:85040317156
VL - 132
SP - 228
EP - 232
JO - Biological Psychology
JF - Biological Psychology
SN - 0301-0511
ER -