Background/Objective

In the last decade, socio-political violence in Colombia (South America) has created an environment of extreme/chronic stress. In this study, brain imaging technology (fMRI) and behavioral task performance were used to measure potential deficits in executive functioning for emotional processing in Colombian children.

Method

Participants (22 Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD and 22 neurotypical, NT) were asked to perform a word task with implicit emotional salience, which required them to report the color of the ink in which a positive, negative or neutral word was printed.

Results

Mixed design analysis of variance showed no group differences in accuracy for determining ink color when presented as a positive or neutral word. However, PTSD children were significantly less accurate (negative words) and notably slower (both positive and negative words) at determining ink color when presented in the context of an emotional word. PTSD processing of positive and negative words was associated with hypoactivation in the superior and middle frontal gyri of the right hemisphere in comparison to NT children.

Conclusions

These results may reflect a deficit in executive functioning for emotionally laden stimuli, perhaps induced as a by-product of their traumatic experiences.

中文翻译：

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患有创伤后应激障碍的儿童对情感词语的内隐处理：一项功能磁共振成像调查。

 背景/目标

在过去的十年中，哥伦比亚（南美洲）的社会政治暴力造成了极端/长期压力的环境。在这项研究中，大脑成像技术（fMRI）和行为任务表现被用来测量哥伦比亚儿童情绪处理执行功能的潜在缺陷。

 方法

参与者（22 名创伤后应激障碍（PTSD）和 22 名神经典型（NT））被要求执行一项具有隐含情感显着性的单词任务，这要求他们报告打印积极、消极或中性单词的墨水颜色。

 结果

混合设计方差分析表明，当呈现为积极或中性词时，确定墨水颜色的准确性没有组间差异。然而，当出现在情感词的上下文中时，创伤后应激障碍（PTSD）儿童在确定墨水颜色时的准确度（消极词）明显较低，而且速度明显较慢（积极词和消极词）。与 NT 儿童相比，PTSD 对积极和消极词语的处理与右半球额上回和额中回的低激活有关。

 结论

这些结果可能反映了对充满情绪的刺激的执行功能的缺陷，这可能是他们的创伤经历的副产品。