The Brain Mechanism Of The Subliminal Traumatic Information Effect On Earthquake Survivors

The result of experiment one showed that compared with the control group, the survivor group showed significant enhancement of activation in the right anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) in response to masked earthquake-related images. In the survivor group, the degree of right ACC activation was negatively correlated with the frequency of symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This suggests that trauma exposure during adolescence may have a unique long-term impact on ACC/MPFC function, top-down modulation of trauma-related information, and subsequent symptoms of PTSD.The result of experiment two found that during incongruent versus congruent condition, the brain regions involving cognitive control (e.g., prefrontal cortex) were activated in all people and there was no significant difference between groups. Interestingly, the survivor group mainly showed significant activation in the ventral anterior cingulate cortex (vACC) and the bilateral parahippocampa gyrus during congruent minus incongruent condition as compared to the control group. Additionally, psychophysiological interaction (PPI) results proved that the survivor group had a stronger functional connectivity between the left parahippocampa gyrus and the vACC. Moreover, Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) scores correlated positively with BOLD activity in the vACC during congruent condition. These results indicated that those survivors who were higher in predisposing for further incidence of depression might be more abnormal in the brain network of emotional process (e.g., vACC-parahippocampa). These further illustrate that in the cognitive resources conditions, interference will automatically receive negative emotional information in survivors.