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Citation |
Mohamed AZ, Lagopoulos J, Nasrallah FA, Shan Z. Neuroscience 2023; ePub(ePub): ePub. |
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Copyright |
(Copyright © 2023, International Brain Research Organization, Publisher Elsevier Publishing) |
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DOI |
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PMID |
37080447 |
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Abstract |
Fatigue is a long-lasting problem in traumatic brain injury (TBI) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), with limited research that investigated the fatigue-related white-matter changes within TBI and/or PTSD cohorts. This exploratory cross-sectional study used diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and neuropsychological data collected from 153 male Vietnam War veterans, as part of the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative - Department of Defense, and were divided clinically into control veterans, PTSD, TBI, and with both TBI and PTSD (TBI+PTSD). The existence of fatigue was defined by the question "Do you often feel tired, fatigued, or sleepy during the daytime?". DTI data were compared between fatigue and non-fatigue subgroups in each clinical group using tract-based spatial statistics voxel-based differences. Fatigue was reported in controls (29.55%), slightly higher in TBI (52.17%, P(Benf) = 0.06), and significantly higher in both TBI+PTSD (66.67%, P(Benf) = 0.001) and PTSD groups (79.25%, P(Benf) < 0.001). Compared to non-fatigued subgroups, no white-matter differences were observed in the fatigued subgroups of control or TBI, while the fatigued PTSD subgroup only showed increased diffusivity measures (i.e., radial and axial), and the fatigued TBI+PTSD subgroup showed decreased fractional anisotropy and increased diffusivity measures (P(FWE) ≤ 0.05). The results act as preliminary findings suggesting fatigue to be significantly reported in TBI+PTSD and PTSD decades post-trauma with a possible link to white-matter microstructural differences in both PTSD and TBI+PTSD. Future studies with larger cohorts and detailed fatigue assessments would be required to identify the white-matter changes associated with fatigue in these cohorts. Language: en |
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Keywords |
Fatigue; Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI); Posttraumatic Stress Disorder; Tract Based Spatial Statistics (TBSS); Traumatic brain Injury |