Key result
Post-traumatic growth was associated with increased high and low frequency heart rate variability during positive emotional stimulation and greater left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex activation during negative stimulation compared to controls.
Why the study?
Does exposure to affective images elicit different heart rate variability and DLPFC activation in adults with post-traumatic growth compared to those with PTSD or controls?
Cross-Sectional (n=90)
Does exposure to affective images elicit different heart rate variability and DLPFC activation in adults with post-traumatic growth compared to those with PTSD or controls?
p-value: p=0.004
Post-traumatic growth is associated with distinct physiological and neural responses to emotional stimuli, including increased heart rate variability and left DLPFC activation, differentiating it from PTSD.
May differentiate resilience physiology from PTSD; leaves open causal mechanisms and clinical utility.
The present study evaluated the activities of heart rate variability (HRV) and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) in response to the presentation of affective pictures correlated with posttraumatic growth (PTG) among adults exposed to the Tianjin explosion incident. The participants who were directly involved in the Tianjin explosions were divided into control, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and PTG group according to the scores of PTSD Checklist-Civilian Version and PTG Inventory survey. All participants received exposure to affective images. Electrocardiogram recording took place during the process for the purpose of analyzing HRV. Meanwhile, functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) was used to measure DLPFC activity through hemodynamic response. Our results indicated that, while performing the negative and positive picture stimulating, PTG increased both in low and high frequency components of HRV compared with the control group, but PTSD was not observed in this phenomenon. Moreover, the fNIRS data revealed that PTG had an increased activation in the left DLPFC compared to the control in the condition of negative pictures stimulating, wheras PTSD showed a higher activation in the right DLPFC while receiving positive pictures stimulating. To our knowledge, this is the first study which provides the differences between PTSD and PTG in emotional regulation.
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Wei et al. (2017) conducted a cross-sectional in Post-traumatic growth (PTG) and Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (n=90). Post-traumatic growth (PTG) vs. Control and PTSD groups was evaluated on Heart rate variability (HRV) and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) activation during affective picture stimulation (p=0.004). Post-traumatic growth was associated with increased high and low frequency heart rate variability during positive emotional stimulation and greater left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex activation during negative stimulation compared to controls.
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