FMRI Assessment of Attention and Memory in PTSD

描述（由申请人提供）：该奖项的PI是Rajendra a . Morey，杜克大学精神病学系临床助理，杜克-北卡罗来纳大学脑成像和分析中心的主要教员。Drs。格雷戈里·麦卡锡和乔纳森·戴维森将担任导师。候选人的短期职业目标是拓宽他在(a)神经生物学和创伤后应激障碍基础的功能神经解剖学(b)功能神经成像研究方法(c)在创伤后应激障碍研究中使用心理测量工具(d)生物统计学(d)以病人为导向的负责任的研究行为。他的长期目标是发展一个高质量的研究项目，利用功能性脑成像来阐明认知和情感过程在PTSD发病和治疗中的作用。候选人将通过整合教学、研究生课程、指导阅读、辅导、撰写评论文章，并通过临床研究项目管理、资助和研究伦理方面的培训来促进其教育目标。创伤后应激障碍有三个主要特征：(i)通过频繁的记忆和侵入性的想法来重温创伤经历，（ii）避免提醒创伤事件，（iii）慢性亢奋状态；这些可能是在严重的心理创伤之后发展起来的，影响了大约8%的美国人口。注意力和记忆力受损是与创伤后应激障碍相关的最一致的神经认知发现，但这些缺陷的神经基础尚未得到很好的理解，需要进一步研究。本研究旨在探讨创伤后应激障碍相关的情绪失调对注意力和记忆相关神经系统的影响。本研究的三个主要目的是使用功能性MRI来描述创伤后应激障碍患者的情绪与(i)自愿注意，(i)非自愿注意和（iii）记忆的相互作用。先前测试的认知挑战将在功能磁共振成像环境中用于量化PTSD患者、创伤对照组和健康对照组之间的任务相关激活。功能磁共振成像测量与神经心理学和临床测量之间的相关性将被研究。从这项研究中获得的证据有望进一步推动创伤后应激障碍领域的发展，并加深我们对导致注意力和记忆缺陷的功能性神经回路的理解。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The PI for this award is Rajendra A. Morey, a Clinical Associate in the Department of Psychiatry at Duke University with a primary faculty appointment at the Duke-UNC Brain Imaging and Analysis Center. Drs. Gregory McCarthy and Jonathan Davidson will serve as mentors. The candidate's short-term career goals are to broaden his understanding in (a) neurobiology and functional neuroanatomy underlying PTSD (b) functional neuroimaging research methodology (c) use of psychometric tools in PTSD research (d) biostatistics (d) responsible conduct of patient oriented research. His long-term goals are to develop a high quality research program that utilizes functional brain imaging to clarify the role of cognitive and emotion processes in the onset and treatment of PTSD. The candidate will facilitate his educational objectives by integrating didactics, graduate courses, directed readings, tutorials, authoring of review articles and augmented by training in clinical research program management, grantsmanship, and research ethics. PTSD is characterized by three cardinal features: (i) reliving the traumatic experience through frequent memories and intrusive thoughts, (ii) avoidance of reminders of the traumatic event, (iii) a chronic state of hyperarousal; these may develop in the aftermath of severe psychological trauma and affect approximately 8% of the US population. Impaired attention and memory are the most consistently reported neurocognitive findings associated with PTSD, yet the neural basis of these deficits is not well understood and warrants further investigation. The goal of this proposal is to investigate the impact of emotional dysregulation associated with PTSD on the neural correlates of attention and memory. The three principle aims of this study are to use functional MRI to describe the interaction of emotion with (i) voluntary attention, fii) involuntary attention, and (iii) memory in patients with PTSD. Previously tested cognitive challenges will be used in the fMRI environment to quantify task related activation between PTSD patients, trauma controls, and healthy controls. Correlations between fMRI measures and neuropsychological and clinical measures will be investigated. The evidence gained from this study is expected to further the field of PTSD and our understanding of the functional neural circuits that contribute to attention and memory deficits.