Citation

Bjork JM, Burroughs TK, Franke LM, Pickett TC, Johns SE, Moeller FG, Walker WC. Psychiatry Res. 2016; 246: 321-325.

Affiliation

Hunter Holmes McGuire Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Richmond, VA, USA; Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center, Richmond, VA, USA; Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.psychres.2016.10.008

PMID

27750113

Abstract

In military populations, traumatic brain injury (TBI) also holds potential to increase impulsivity and impair mood regulation due to blast injury effects on ventral frontal cortex - to put military personnel at risk for suicide or substance abuse. We assessed a linkage between depression and impaired behavioral inhibition in 117 blast-exposed service members (SM) and veterans with post-concussion syndrome (PCS), where PCS was defined using a Rivermead Postconcussive Symptom Questionnaire (RPQ) modified to clarify whether each symptom worsened compared to pre-blast. Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression Scale (CES-D) scores, PTSD Checklist 5 (PCL-5) scores, and RPQ raw subscale scores correlated positively with commission and perseverative errors on the continuous performance test II (CPT-II). In contrast, the number of RPQ symptoms ostensibly worsened post-blast did not correlate with impulsive errors on the CPT-II. These data replicate earlier findings that link increased affective symptomatology to impaired behavior inhibition in military TBI populations, but where additional effects on impulsivity from the blast itself remain equivocal.

Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd.

Language: en