General and emotion-specific alterations to cognitive control in women with a history of childhood abuse.

Autor: Mackiewicz Seghete KL; Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Colorado Boulder, 345 UCB, Boulder, CO 80309, United States., Kaiser RH; Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Colorado Boulder, 345 UCB, Boulder, CO 80309, United States., DePrince AP; Psychology Department, University of Denver, Frontier Hall, Rm 143, 2155 S. Race St., Denver, CO 80208, United States., Banich MT; Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Colorado Boulder, 345 UCB, Boulder, CO 80309, United States.; Institute of Cognitive Science, University of Colorado Boulder, 344 UCB, Boulder, CO 80309, United States.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: NeuroImage. Clinical [Neuroimage Clin] 2017 Jul 11; Vol. 16, pp. 151-164. Date of Electronic Publication: 2017 Jul 11 (Print Publication: 2017).
DOI: 10.1016/j.nicl.2017.06.030
Abstrakt: Background: Although limited, the literature suggests alterations in activation of cognitive control regions in adults and adolescents with a history of childhood abuse. The current study examined whether such alterations are increased in the face of emotionally-distracting as compared to emotionally neutral information, and whether such alterations occur in brain regions that exert cognitive control in a more top-down sustained manner or a more bottom-up transient manner.
Methods: Participants were young adult women (ages 23-30): one group with a history of childhood physical or sexual abuse (N = 15) and one with no trauma exposure (N = 17), as assessed through the Trauma History Questionnaire and a two-stage interview adapted from the National Crime Victims Survey. Participants underwent fMRI scanning while completing hybrid block/event-related versions of a classic color-word and an emotional Stroop paradigm (threat and positive words). This paradigm allowed us to examine both sustained (activation persisting across blocks) and transient (event-specific activation) aspects of cognitive control.
Results: Women with a history of childhood abuse demonstrated decreased recruitment of frontal-parietal regions involved in cognitive control and enhanced recruitment of a ventral attention surveillance network during blocks of both versions of the Stroop task. Additionally, they had less suppression of brain regions involved in self-referential processes for threat blocks, but greater suppression of these regions for positive blocks. Severity of avoidance symptoms was associated with sustained activation in lateral prefrontal regions, whereas hyperarousal/re-experiencing symptoms were associated with sustained activity in temporal regions. No differential effects were observed for transient control.
Conclusions: Results suggest exposure to childhood abuse is associated with blunted recruitment of brain regions supporting task-set maintenance but hypervigilance for task-irrelevant information, regardless of whether distractors are emotionally neutral or emotional. Exposure to childhood abuse is also associated with less suppression of default mode brain regions associated with self-referential processing in the face of irrelevant threat information, but heightened ability to suppress similar processing for irrelevant positive information.
Databáze: MEDLINE