Structural alterations in lateral prefrontal, parietal and posterior midline regions of men with chronic posttraumatic stress disorder
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: So far, the neural network associated with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has been suggested to mainly involve the amygdala, hippocampus and medial prefrontal cortex. However, increasing evidence indicates that cortical regions extending beyond this network might also be implicated in the pathophysiology of PTSD. We aimed to investigate PTSD-related structural alterations in some of these regions. METHODS: We enrolled highly traumatized refugees with and without (traumatized controls) PTSD and nontraumatized controls in the study. To increase the validity of our results, we combined an automatic cortical parcellation technique and voxel-based morphometry. RESULTS: In all, 39 refugees (20 with and 19 without PTSD) and 13 controls participated in the study. Participants were middle-aged men who were free of psychoactive substances and consumed little to no alcohol. Patients with PTSD (and to a lesser extent traumatized controls) showed reduced volumes in the right inferior parietal cortex, the left rostral middle frontal cortex, the bilateral lateral orbitofrontal cortex and the bilateral isthmus of the cingulate. An influence of cumulative traumatic stress on the isthmus of the cingulate and the lateral orbitofrontal cortex indicated that, at least in these regions, structural alterations might be associated with repeated stress experiences. Voxel-based morphometry analyses produced largely consistent results, but because of a poorer signal-to-noise ratio, conventional statistics did not reach significance. LIMITATIONS: Although we controlled for several important confounding variables (e.g., sex, alcohol abuse) with our particular sample, this might limit the generalizibility of our data. Moreover, high comorbidity of PTSD and major depression hinders a definite separation of these conditions in our findings. Finally, the results concerning the lateral orbito frontal cortex should be interpreted with caution, as magnetic resonance imaging acquisition in this region is affected by a general signal loss. CONCLUSION: Our results indicate that lateral prefrontal, parietal and posterior midline structures are implicated in the pathophysiology of PTSD. As these regions are particularly involved in episodic memory, emotional processing and executive control, this might have important implications for the understanding of PTSD symptoms.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".