Different white matter abnormalities between the first-episode, treatment-naive patients with posttraumatic stress disorder and generalized anxiety disorder without comorbid conditions

详细信息    查看全文

• 作者：Li Zhang^a ; ¹ ; Yan Zhang^a ; ¹ ; Lingjiang Li^a ; ^b ; ^{llj2920@163.com"" rel=""nofollow} ; Zexuan Li^a ; Weihui Li^a ; Ning Ma^a ; ^c ; Cailan Hou^a ; ^d ; Zhijun Zhang^e ; Zhiqiang Zhang^f ; Lifeng Wang^a ; Lian Duan^a ; ^g ; Guangming Lu^f
• 关键词：Posttraumatic stress disorder ; Generalized anxiety disorder ; White matter
• 刊名：Journal of Affective Disorders
• 出版年：2011
• 出版时间：September 2011
• 年：2011
• 卷：133
• 期：1-2
• 页码：294-299
• 全文大小：291 K

文摘

Background

This study compared brain white matter integrity in two groups of patients with DSM-IV anxiety disorders.

Method

Seventeen patients with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), 20 with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), and 28 healthy controls were assessed on diffusion tensor imaging.

Results

As compared to healthy controls, increased fractional anisotropy (FA) in left superior frontal gyrus in PTSD patients, and increased FA in right postcentral gyrus in GAD subjects were exhibited. Furthermore, patients with PTSD showed reduced FA in right anterior cingulate gyrus relative to GAD subjects. However, there was no significant correlation between the FA value of any altered region and the severity of PTSD or GAD.

Limitations

The sample studied can be considered small. Gender and educational level were not well-matched among the groups.

Conclusions

We tentatively speculate that abnormal white matter integrity of right anterior cingulate gyrus is an important neuroimaging marker of PTSD that distinguishes it from other anxiety disorders such as GAD.