History of childhood maltreatment augments dorsolateral prefrontal processing of emotional valence in PTSD
Open accessAbstract
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is characterized by conflicting findings of both increased and decreased amygdala and prefrontal reactivity to threat or trauma stimuli. Childhood maltreatment (CM), a potent risk factor for PTSD, exerts long-lasting influences on threat processing and prefrontal-amygdala function. This suggests that CM history may influence PTSD neural phenotypes related to threat processing. Here, we adapt a well-characterized emotional conflict paradigm to investigate CM effects on both emotional conflict and emotional valence processing within PTSD stratified by task relevance. Forty-two individuals with PTSD (22 reporting extensive CM history (PTSD-CM)) and 20 trauma-exposed healthy controls (TEHCs) underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging while identifying affect of emotional faces (fear and happy) overlaid with a goal-irrelevant emotional distractor word ("FEAR" or "HAPPY"). We examined effects of CM on conflict, conflict adaptation, valence-related activation (fear vs. happy) for goal-relevant (face) and goal-irrelevant stimuli (word), and valence effects in interaction with goal-relevancy (face vs. word). Though no activation differences between groups were observed for conflict contrasts nor for valence effects in the amygdala, CM status interacted with valence processing differences as a function of goal relevance in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC). Here, PTSD-CM displayed greater activation relative to PTSD to negative valence when stimuli were goal-irrelevant. CM history also moderated relationships between activation abnormalities and PTSD re-experiencing symptoms. These findings provide initial evidence that CM history augments dorsolateral prefrontal bias to implicitly processed stimulus valence in PTSD.
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Environmental factors are strongly associated with the risk of developing MDD and other stress-related disorders.
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- Authors
- Fonzo, G. A., Huemer, J., & Etkin, A.
- Affiliations
- VA Palo Alto Health Care System (US)
- Corresponding author
- Etkin, Amit
- Venue
- Journal of Psychiatric Research
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2016-03
- Volume
- 74
- Pages
- 45-54
- ISSN
- 0022-3956 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC4744518
- OpenAlex
- W2203024088
- Cited by
- 33
- References
- 9
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 2 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 9 · 2018: 6 · 2017: 4 · 2016: 1
- FWCI
- 4.55
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Journal of Psychiatric Research (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institute of Mental Health (T32 MH019938, R01MH091860)
- Max Kade Foundation, Austrian Academy of Sciences
- Sierra-Pacific Mental Illness Research, Education and Clinical Center (MIRECC)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Research
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child Abuse and Trauma
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Psychoanalysis and Psychopathology Research
- Keywords
- post-traumatic stress disorder, child abuse, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, emotional conflict, threat processing, amygdala, goal relevance, emotional facial expressions, re-experiencing symptoms
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Emotions, Facial Expression, Female, Goals, Humans, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Middle Aged, Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic, Prefrontal Cortex, Adult Survivors of Child Abuse, Functional Neuroimaging
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