Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is associated with abnormalities in the processing and regulation of emotion as well as cognitive deficits. This study evaluated the differential brain activation patterns associated with cognitive and emotional distractors during working memory (WM) maintenance for human faces between patients with PTSD and healthy controls (HCs) and assessed the relationship between changes in the activation patterns by the opposing effects of distraction types and gray matter volume (GMV). Twenty-two patients with PTSD and twenty-two HCs underwent T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and event-related functional MRI (fMRI), respectively. Event-related fMRI data were recorded while subjects performed a delayed-response WM task with human face and trauma-related distractors. Compared to the HCs, the patients with PTSD showed significantly reduced GMV of the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) ( < 0.05, FWE-corrected). For the human face distractor trial, the patients showed significantly decreased activities in the superior frontal gyrus and IFG compared with HCs ( < 0.05, FWE-corrected). The patients showed lower accuracy scores and slower reaction times for the face recognition task with trauma-related distractors compared with HCs as well as significantly increased brain activity in the STG during the trauma-related distractor trial was observed ( < 0.05, FWE-corrected). Such differential brain activation patterns associated with the effects of distraction in PTSD patients may be linked to neural mechanisms associated with impairments in both cognitive control for confusable distractors and the ability to control emotional distraction.

中文翻译：

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创伤后应激障碍工作记忆维持过程中与认知和情绪干扰相关的脑形态变化和功能神经解剖学

创伤后应激障碍（PTSD）与情绪处理和调节异常以及认知缺陷有关。本研究评估了 PTSD 患者和健康对照组 (HC) 人脸工作记忆 (WM) 维持过程中与认知和情绪干扰因素相关的大脑激活模式差异，并评估了激活模式变化与分心的相反影响之间的关系。类型和灰质体积 (GMV)。 22 名 PTSD 患者和 22 名 HC 分别接受了 T1 加权磁共振成像 (MRI) 和事件相关功能 MRI (fMRI)。当受试者使用人脸和创伤相关干扰物执行延迟反应 WM 任务时，记录与事件相关的功能磁共振成像数据。与 HC 相比，PTSD 患者的额下回 (IFG) GMV 显着降低（< 0.05，FWE 校正）。对于人脸牵引器试验，与 HC 相比，患者的额上回和 IFG 活动显着减少（< 0.05，FWE 校正）。与 HC 相比，患者在使用创伤相关干扰物进行面部识别任务时表现出较低的准确度分数和较慢的反应时间，并且在创伤相关干扰物试验期间观察到 STG 中的大脑活动显着增加（< 0.05，FWE 校正） 。这种与 PTSD 患者分心影响相关的差异性大脑激活模式可能与神经机制有关，这些神经机制与对易混淆的分心因素的认知控制和控制情绪分心的能力的损害有关。