Abstract
Posttraumatic growth (PTG), or positive psychological changes following exposure to traumatic events, is commonly reported among trauma survivors. In the present study, we examined neural correlates of PTG in 106 veterans with PTSD and 193 veteran controls using task-free magnetoencephalography (MEG), diagnostic interviews and measures of PTG, and traumatic event exposure. Global synchronous neural interactions (SNIs) were significantly modulated downward with increasing PTG scores in controls (p = .005), but not in veterans with PTSD (p = .601). This effect was primarily characterized by negative slopes in local neural networks, was strongest in the medial prefrontal cortex, and was much stronger and more extensive in the control than the PTSD group. The present study complements previous research highlighting the role of neural adaptation in healthy functioning.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 2013-2020 |
| Number of pages | 8 |
| Journal | Experimental Brain Research |
| Volume | 233 |
| Issue number | 7 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jul 15 2015 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This work was presented at the 29th annual ISTSS conference, Philadelphia, PA, November 7–9, 2013. This work was partially supported by a service-directed grant from the United States Department of Veterans Affairs. We thank Nancy Tabaka, Kari Johnson, Emily Van Kampen, Ann Marie Winskowski, Ryan Miller, Alina Shub, and Alex Alcorn for their help in participant recruitment, consent, and data entry.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2015, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg (outside the USA).
Keywords
- Magnetoencephalography
- Neuroimaging
- Posttraumatic growth