Background
Clinical impressions and preclinical work suggest that posttraumatic stress disorder
(PTSD) might be associated with dysfunctional reward processing. To pursue this issue,
we administered a validated passive-viewing monetary reward task during functional
magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to subjects with chronic PTSD and to mentally healthy
individuals.
Methods
The protocol evaluated fMRI signal changes that anticipated or accompanied monetary
gains and losses under varying conditions of controlled expectation. The “expectancy
phase” entailed presentation of a promising, unpromising, or intermediate Wheel of
Fortune–type spinner, whereas the “outcome phase” was defined by the arrow landing
on one of three sectors of that spinner, thereby determining the subjects' gain or
loss for that trial.
Results
Neuroimaging data from 20 PTSD and 26 healthy subjects withstood quality control procedures
and were included. In voxelwise and anatomically defined region-of-interest analyses,
when gains were contrasted to losses, between-group comparison revealed smaller bilateral
striatal activations in the PTSD subjects. In the PTSD group, less striatal activation
to gains versus losses was associated with more self-reported motivational and social
deficits.
Conclusions
The present data support the hypothesis that PTSD is associated with abnormal processing
of monetary outcomes and that this alteration might be related to some aspects of
emotional numbing.
Key Words
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: July 30, 2009
Accepted:
June 5,
2009
Received in revised form:
May 22,
2009
Received:
December 6,
2008
Identification
Copyright
© 2009 Society of Biological Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
