Area of Brain Injury Linked With PTSD Symptoms in Children
Originally published by Reuters Health, August 2, 2002
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) — Lesions in the right limbic system following closed head trauma are associated with the absence of symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms 1 year after injury, researchers report in the online August issue of Radiology.
PTSD after head injury is characterized by four criteria, including intense fear when presented with a traumatic stressor; persistent reexperiencing of the trauma; persistent avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma; and persistent symptoms of increased arousal such as irritability and insomnia, the researchers explain.
Dr. Edward H. Herskovits from the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, Baltimore, and colleagues studied the occurrence of PTSD in 94 subjects, 4 to 19 years of age, after closed head injury. Before being injured, none of the subjects had PTSD.
The researchers obtained magnetic images 3 months after injury and manually delineated and registered the lesions to the Talairach coordinate system. After 1 year of followup, 41 patients met the PTSD reexperiencing criteria and 9 patients met all criteria for PTSD, the researchers note.
Dr. Herskovits' team found that patients who met the PTSD reexperiencing criteria had fewer lesions in the right limbic structures, i.e., the right cingulum and hippocampus, compared with patients who did not meet the criteria for PTSD reexperiencing (p = 0.003). Limbic system lesions on the left did not inhibit PTSD reexperiencing.
"Although our research should be confirmed with a formal multicenter trial, our results may indicate regions of the brain that, when injured, may increase or reduce (depending on the region) the probability of PTSD symptoms," Dr. Herskovits said in a press statement.
