Enhanced amygdala and medial prefrontal activation during nonconscious processing of fear in posttraumatic stress disorder: An fMRI study

Biological models of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) suggest that patients will display heightened amygdala but decreased medial prefrontal activity during processing of fear stimuli. However, a rapid and automatic alerting mechanism for responding to nonconscious signals of fear suggests that...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Human brain mapping 2008-05, Vol.29 (5), p.517-523
Main Authors: Bryant, Richard A., Kemp, Andrew H., Felmingham, Kim L., Liddell, Belinda, Olivieri, Gloria, Peduto, Anthony, Gordon, Evian, Williams, Leanne M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
amygdala
Amygdala - metabolism
Biological and medical sciences
Electrodiagnosis. Electric activity recording
fear
Fear - physiology
Female
fMRI
Humans
Image Processing, Computer-Assisted
Investigative techniques, diagnostic techniques (general aspects)
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Male
medial prefrontal cortex
Medical sciences
Nervous system
posttraumatic stress disorder
Prefrontal Cortex - metabolism
Radiodiagnosis. Nmr imagery. Nmr spectrometry
Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic - physiopathology
Unconscious (Psychology)
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Summary:Biological models of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) suggest that patients will display heightened amygdala but decreased medial prefrontal activity during processing of fear stimuli. However, a rapid and automatic alerting mechanism for responding to nonconscious signals of fear suggests that PTSD may display heightened rather than decreased MPFC under nonconscious processing of fear stimuli. This study used functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine blood oxygenation level‐dependent signal changes during nonconscious presentation (16.7 ms, masked) of fearful and neutral faces in 15 participants with PTSD and 15 age and sex‐matched healthy control participants. Results indicate that PTSD participants display increased amygdala and MPFC activity during nonconscious processing of fearful faces. These data extend existing models by suggesting that the impaired MPFC activation in PTSD may be limited to conscious fear processing. Hum Brain Mapp, 2008. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
ISSN:1065-9471
1097-0193
DOI:10.1002/hbm.20415