Symptoms of Posttraumatic Stress Rather Than Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Best Account for Altered Emotional Responses in Military Veterans.

ABSTRACT: Emotional dysfunction is evident in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), yet it is unclear what aspects of the disorder most directly relate to aberrant emotional responding. Also, the frequent co-occurrence of blast-related mild traumatic brain injuries (mTBIs) among recently deployed U.S. military personnel complicates efforts to understand the basis for emotional disruption. We studied a cross-sectional sample (enriched for PTSD and mTBI) of 123 U.S. veterans of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We measured subjective affective evaluations and peripheral psychophysiological responses to images with pleasant, neutral, unpleasant, and combat-related aversive content. When compared with other postdeployment participants, those who had combat-related PTSD rated pleasant image content as less p

SUBMITTER: Marquardt CA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11792348 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature