WOMEN RESILIENCE TO TRAUMA: FMRI STUDY OF EMOTION

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This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. The principal goal of this project is obtain pilot data for a grant proposal. The goal of the grant is to understand the regional brain control of emotion in women who have experienced sexual trauma or intimate partner violence. Specifically, the project will compare women who demonstrate resiliency after traumatic exposure (as evidenced by the maintenance of function in the domains of work, interpersonal relationships and enjoyment of life) to those who show functional impairment and develop PTSD. fMRI BOLD response will be used to explore whether resilience to the negative consequences of extreme stress will be related to reduced amygdala and enhanced medial prefrontal cortex function in response to fMRI imaging tasks designed to evaluate these brain structures. We propose to use four tasks during fMRI. 1) A cognitive reappraisal task has been shown to activate the prefrontal cortex. In this task, subjects are asked to view pictures designed to elicit emotionally neutral, negative and positive responses. They will also be asked to enhance and suppress those emotions while in the magnet. 2) We will also be using a task exposing subjects to different intensities of emotional faces, showing them fearful, angry and neutral faces. This task has been shown to activate the amygdala. 3) We will employ a reward incentive task in which subjects play a computer game under different conditions with the potential to win or lose small amounts of money. 4) Lastly, they will be studied with fMRI during a task in which they will be told that they will be given an uncomfortable but not extremely painful electric shock, while viewing specific images, while under other conditions they will be "safe'. In actuality, no shock will be delivered. Finally we will explore psychosocial factors associated with functional resilience in the domains of positive emotions/optimism, Cognitive flexibility (including the capacity for positive reappraisal), moral compass (including measures of spirituality and attachment to religion), social support and active coping.