The Study Of The Gray Matter Volume And Diffusion Tensor Imaging Of Brain In Early Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a kind of psychonosema that initiates from the seriously abnormal painful incidents and also a delayed or a lasting reaction from the seriously abnormal and threatening disaster. It was first seen in , which was published in 1980. With the increasing number of the trauma events come from war, social violence, natural disaster, family violence, children maltreatment and so on, the attack rate of PTSD becomes more and more high and the research in PTSD becomes more and more widespread. But many problems about its pathogenesis are not very clear till now. Nowadays many foreign countries have widely investigated the neurobiology mechanism about PTSD, and the results indicated that the limbic system in patients with PTSD exists functional disorder, such as diminished volume in hippocampus and anterior cingutate, changed FA values in cingutate and so on. However, less research was done on the structural changes of early PTSD. This study used the high resolution magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and magnetic resonance diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), and it began with the changes of the gray matter volume, FA values and ADC values in hippocampus, anterior cingutate and posterior cingutate. This study is to investigate whether there are changes in the hippocampus, anterior cingutate and posterior cingutate in the patients with early PTSD caused by mining disaster and to investigate the possible mechanism.ExperimentⅠ: The measurement of the limbic system gray matter volume in early PTSDObjective To investigate the possible changes of hippocampus, anterior cingutate and posterior cingutate volume in patients with early PTSD. Methods 10 patients with early PTSD caused by mining disaster were involved after six months, and 10 gender, age matched healthy persons who exposed to the same mining disaster were selected as controls. The high resolution T1 weight images were gained by Magnetom trio tim 3.0T (Siemens company) supraconductive MRI scan. Then IBASPM software toolbox was used to gain the brain gray matter volume in different anatomic site. At last, covariance methods were used to analyze the data previously obtained, so as to rule out the reflection in age and sex and to compare the differences in gray matter volume of hippocampus, anterior cingutate, and posterior cingutate between the two groups. Results After eliminating the reflection in age and sex, the gray matter volume in hippocampus and anterior cingutate, posterior cingutate did not show any significant differences between two groups (p>0.05). Conclusions The results suggest that there may be no significant differences in hippocampus and anterior cingutate, posterior cingutate volume between patients with early PTSD and healthy persons who exposed the same mining disaster . ExperimentⅡ: The changes of the limbic system DTI in early posttraumatic stress disorderObjective To investigate the possible changes of the hippocampus, anterior cingutate and posterior cingutate DTI in patients with early PTSD. Methods 10 patients with PTSD caused by mining disaster were involved after six months, and 10 gender, age matched healthy persons who exposed the same mining disaster were selected as controls. The whole brain DTI data were gained by Magnetom trio tim 3.0T (Siemens company) supraconductive MRI scan. FUNTool was used to perform the restitution of the FA image and ADC image. Analysis software(Neuro 3D)from manufacturing company in workstation was used to select and measure certain site in hippocampus, anterior cingutate and posterior cingutate. The region of interest (ROI) in hippocampus was divided into three parts, including head, body and tail. The sampling volume was equal, and it was put in the ROI center. Above work was done independently by two attending physicians in Department of Radiology in Xijing Hospital. With SPSS16.0 statistical analysis software, analysis of covariance methods was used to rule out the reflection in age and sex and to compare the differences in FA and ADC values of the hippocampus, anterior cingutate and posterior cingutate between the two groups. Simple correlation coefficientγcould be used to estimate the objective reliability among DTI data gauger. Results In comparison with controls after eliminating the reflection in age and sex, the PTSD patients had diminished FA values in right posterior cingutate (p<0.05). FA values in other regions and ADC values in the hippocampus, anterior cingutate and posterior cingutate did not show any significant differences between two groups. Conclusions The results suggest that there may be morphometric changes in right posterior cingutate in patients with early PTSD. The change of FA values detected by DTI can help to determine the involvement of neural network in PTSD patients sensitively.