Chu C, Qiu M, Liu K, Tan L, Wu Y, Xie B, Chen W, Zhang S. Psychiatry Clin. Neurosci. 2016; 71(4): 247-253.
Affiliation
Institute of Computing Medicine, College of Biomedical Engineering and Medical Imaging, Third Military Medical University, 30 Gaotanyan street, Chongqing, 400038, China P.R.
AIM: Structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies have revealed evidence of brain abnormalities in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) patients. Cortical complexity and local gyrification index (lGI) reflects potential biological processes associated with normal or abnormal cognitive functioning. In the current study, lGI is used to explore cortical folding in PTSD patients involved in motor vehicle accidents (MVCs).
METHODS: MRI brain scans were acquired from 18PTSD patients who suffered MVCs at least 6 months previously and 18 healthy control subjects. All MRI images were obtained on a 3 T Siemens MRI machine and the cortical folding was analyzed using the workflow provided by software FreeSurfer. A general FreeSurfer's general linear model (GLM) was used in the group analysis. In addition, correlation analysis was performed between the average of lGI extracted from the significantly different areas and the data for the clinical scale.
RESULTS: The PTSD patients had significantly greater CAPS(Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale) scores than the control group. The patients showed significantly reduced lGI in the left lateral orbitofrontal cortex, consistent with findings of previous volumetric studies on PTSD. But there were no significant correlation in the left lateral OFC between CAPS scores and lGI.
CONCLUSION: We suggest that abnormal gyrification in PTSD patients can be an important indicator of neurodevelopment deficits and may indeed be a biological marker for PTSD.
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