When Fear Shrinks the Brain: A Computational Model of the Effects of Posttraumatic Stress on Hippocampal Volume

• Published in: Topics in cognitive science 2021-07, Vol.13 (3), p.499-514
• Main Authors: Smith, Briana M., Thomasson, Madison, Yang, Yuxue Cher, Sibert, Catherine, Stocco, Andrea
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: ACT‐R; Amygdala; Cognitive Architecture; Declarative Memory; Hippocampus; Long‐Term Memory; Memory; Post‐traumatic Stress Disorder
• ISSN: 1756-8757; 1756-8765
• DOI: 10.1111/tops.12537

Post‐traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a psychiatric disorder often characterized by the unwanted re‐experiencing of a traumatic event through nightmares, flashbacks, and/or intrusive memories. This paper presents a neurocomputational model using the ACT‐R cognitive architecture that simulates intrusive memory retrieval following a potentially traumatic event (PTE) and predicts hippocampal volume changes observed in PTSD. Memory intrusions were captured in the ACT‐R rational analysis framework by weighting the posterior probability of re‐encoding traumatic events into memory with an emotional intensity term I to capture the degree to which an event was perceived as dangerous or traumatic. It is hypothesized that (1) increasing the intensity I of a PTE will increase the odds of memory intrusions, and (2) increased frequency of intrusions will result in a concurrent decrease in hippocampal size. A series of simulations were run and it was found that I had a significant effect on the probability of experiencing traumatic memory intrusions following a PTE. The model also found that I was a significant predictor of hippocampal volume reduction, where the mean and range of simulated volume loss match results of existing meta‐analyses. The authors believe that this is the first model to both describe traumatic memory retrieval and provide a mechanistic account of changes in hippocampal volume, capturing one plausible link between PTSD and hippocampal volume. This paper presents a neurocomputational model using the ACT‐R cognitive architecture that simulates intrusive memory retrieval following a potentially traumatic event and predicts hippocampal volume changes observed in Post‐Traumatic Stress Disorder.