Hippocampal Resting-State Functional Connectivity Forecasts Individual PTSD Symptoms: A Data-Driven Approach

Details

• Alternative Title:
  Biol Psychiatry Cogn Neurosci Neuroimaging
• Personal Author:
  Fitzgerald, Jacklynn M. ; Webb, Elisabeth Kate ; Weis, Carissa N. ; Huggins, Ashley A. ; Bennett, Ken P. ; Miskovich, Tara A. ; Krukowski, Jessica L. ; deRoon-Cassini, Terri A. ; Larson, Christine L.
• Description:
  Background:
  
  Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a debilitating disorder and there is no current accurate prediction of who develops it after trauma. Neurobiologically, individuals with chronic PTSD exhibit aberrant resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) between the hippocampus and other brain regions (e.g., amygdala, prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate), and these aberrations correlate with severity of illness. Prior small-scale research (n < 25) has also shown that hippocampal-rsFC measured acutely after trauma is predictive of future severity using an ROI-based approach. While a promising biomarker, to-date no study has employed a data-driven approach to test whole-brain hippocampal-FC patterns in forecasting the development of PTSD symptoms.
  
  Methods:
  
  Ninety-eight adults at risk of PTSD were recruited from the emergency department following traumatic injury and completed resting functional magnetic resonance imaging (rsfMRI; 8min) within 1-month; 6-months later they completed the Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale (CAPS-5) for assessment of PTSD symptom severity. Whole-brain rsFC values with bilateral hippocampi were extracted (CONN) and used in a machine learning kernel ridge regression analysis (PRoNTo); both a k-folds (k=10) and 70/30 testing vs. training split approach were used for cross-validation (1,000 iterations to bootstrap confidence intervals for significance values).
  
  Results:
  
  Acute hippocampal-rsFC significantly predicted CAPS-5 scores at 6-months (r=0.30, p=0.006; MSE=120.58, p=0.006; R2=0.09, p=0.025). In post-hoc analyses, hippocampal-rsFC remained significant after controlling for demographics, PTSD symptoms at baseline, and depression, anxiety, and stress severity at 6-months (B=0.59, SE=0.20, p=0.003).
  
  Conclusions:
  
  Findings suggest functional connectivity of the hippocampus across the brain acutely after traumatic injury is associated with prospective PTSD symptom severity.
  
  
• Subjects:
  Adult Brain Hippocampus Humans Magnetic Resonance Imaging Prospective Studies Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic
• Source:
  Biol Psychiatry Cogn Neurosci Neuroimaging. 7(2):139-149
• Pubmed ID:
  34478884
• Pubmed Central ID:
  PMC8825698
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Funding:
  TL1 TR001437/TR/NCATS NIH HHSUnited States/ ; R01 MH106574/MH/NIMH NIH HHSUnited States/ ; U01 CE002944/CE/NCIPC CDC HHSUnited States/ ; UL1 TR001436/TR/NCATS NIH HHSUnited States/ ; U01 NS088034/NS/NINDS NIH HHSUnited States/
• Volume:
  7
• Issue:
  2
• Collection(s):
  CDC Public Access
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:d56dae9ec3ef2ae973e8b64922d62b88b0eb2baea6f0cba64768d4b63df6eaeabcf912808826b377be76c837ab024203914629e4f6e168fea2b4e9a5b7cb5998
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/119179/cdc_119179_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 559.40 KB ]