Paradoxical Prefrontal-Amygdala Recruitment to Angry and Happy Expressions in Pediatric Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.

ABSTRACT: The neural substrates of pediatric posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) remain incompletely understood, but likely involve abnormal function and development of emotion processing circuitry. Valence-specific and age-related abnormalities during emotion processing have not been elucidated. We examined implicit emotional face processing in pediatric PTSD, predicting abnormalities specific to threat-related emotion. Youth (ages 8-18 years) with PTSD (n=25) and healthy youth (n=28) completed a dynamic emotional face task during fMRI, viewing faces changing from neutral to angry or happy, or changing shape control. Group and cross-sectional age-related differences in activation and functional connectivity were examined in amygdala/hippocampus, medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), and whole-brain ana

SUBMITTER: Keding TJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5061882 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature