Neural Signatures of Affective Processing in PTSD
Undergraduate: Colleen Watson
Faculty Advisor: Aysenil Belger
Department: Psychology & Neuroscience
Emotional regulation is a fundamental aspect of adaptive behavior that is often disrupted in patients with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The goal of the present study was to examine the neural correlates of social emotional processing in PTSD and its association with PTSD symptom severity._x000D_
Methods: 100 veterans with PTSD and 20 healthy controls without PTSD or military history underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while completing an emotional face-matching task.¿¿Additionally, subjects completed¿¿the Clinician Administered PTSD Scale (CAPS), Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS), and DKEFS Color-Word interference tasks.¿¿I hypothesized that the PTSD group would show greater emotional reactivity compared to control subjects. I further hypothesized that hyperarousal of the amygdala in the PTSD group would be associated with greater CAPS, BIS, and lower DKEFS Color-Word interference scores. _x000D_
Data analysis is underway!