%0 Journal Article
%T Altered amygdala activation during face processing in Iraqi and Afghanistani war veterans
%J Biology of mood and anxiety disorders
%D 2011
%A Simmons, Alan N.
%A Matthews, Scott C.
%A Strigo, Irina A.
%A Baker, Dewleen G.
%A Donovan, Heather K.
%A Motezadi, Arame
%A Stein, Murray B.
%A Paulus, Martin P.
%V 1
%N 1
%P 6-6
%X BACKGROUND: Exposure to combat can have a significant impact across a wide array of domains, and may manifest as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a debilitating mental illness that is associated with neural and affective sequelae. This study tested the hypothesis that combat-exposed individuals with and without PTSD, relative to healthy control subjects with no history of PTSD or combat exposure, would show amygdala hyperactivity during performance of a well-validated face processing task. We further hypothesized that differences in the prefrontal cortex would best differentiate the combat-exposed groups with and without PTSD. <br><br>METHODS: Twelve men with PTSD related to combat in Operations Enduring Freedom and/or Iraqi Freedom, 12 male combat-exposed control patients with a history of Operations Enduring Freedom and/or Iraqi Freedom combat exposure but no history of PTSD, and 12 healthy control male patients with no history of combat exposure or PTSD completed a face-matching task during functional magnetic resonance imaging. <br><br>RESULTS: The PTSD group showed greater amygdala activation to fearful versus happy faces than both the combat-exposed control and healthy control groups. Both the PTSD and the combat-exposed control groups showed greater amygdala activation to all faces versus shapes relative to the healthy control group. However, the combat-exposed control group relative to the PTSD group showed greater prefrontal/parietal connectivity with the amygdala, while the PTSD group showed greater connectivity with the subgenual cingulate. The strength of connectivity in the PTSD group was inversely related to avoidance scores. <br><br>CONCLUSIONS: These observations are consistent with the hypothesis that PTSD is associated with a deficiency in top-down modulation of amygdala activation by the prefrontal cortex and shows specific sensitivity to fearful faces.<p /><p>Language: en</p>
%G en
%I Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group - BMC
%@ 2045-5380
%U http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/2045-5380-1-6