Abstract
Performance on an attentional task was assessed in posttraumatic stress disorder patients with substance abuse histories (PTSD-SA). Positron emission tomography (PET) was used to measure concurrent regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF). Eight male PTSD-SA patients and eight normal subjects each received three serial PET scans with 15O-labeled water under the following conditions: (1) resting, (2) auditory continuous performance task (ACPT1), and (3) repeat auditory task (ACPT2). PTSD-SA patients made more errors of commission on the ACPT than normal subjects. Examination of right frontal and parietal cortex ACPT task substrates revealed decreased parietal blood flow in PTSD-SA, which may represent a pathophysiology for poor attentional task performance in PTSD-SA. Attentional problems may underlie other symptomatology in PTSD.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 17-28 |
| Number of pages | 12 |
| Journal | Psychiatry Research - Neuroimaging |
| Volume | 67 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - May 31 1996 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- Continuous performance task
- Parietal cortex
- Positron emission tomography